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« 4 



HIS HOUR 


IS H O U 


BY 

Hr? ELINOR GLYN 

Author of “Three Week*” 



NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
1912 




Copyright, 1910, by 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 




Published, October, 1910 



*^His Hour” is called in England and Russia “When the Hour Came.” 


N ^ 



A miniature of Prince Milaslavski in the uniform of one of his 
ancestors, in which he appeared at the famous fancy ball at 
the Winter Palace some years ago. He was about twenty-three 
at the time. I have selected this likeness of him in prefer- 
ence to a later photograph, as the artist has happily caught 
him in one of his rarelv soft moods, and also, the face being 
clean shaven, the characteristic chiselling of the lips can be seen. 


THE AUTHOR. 






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WITH GRATEFUL HOMAGE AND DEVOTION 
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO 

HER IMPERIAL HIGHNESS 
THE GRAND DUCHESS VLADIMIR 
OF RUSSIA 

In memory of the happy evenings spent in 
her gracious presence when reading to her 
these pages, which her sympathetic aid, in 
facilitating my opportunities for studying the 
Russian character, enabled me to write. Her 
kind appreciation of the finished work is a 
source of the deepest gratification to me. 

Elinor Glyn 


St. Petersburg, May, 1910 








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Sk*'- .. 


HIS HOUR 


CHAPTER I 


HE Sphinx was smiling its eternal smile, 
M It was two o’clock in the morning. The 
tourists had returned to Cairo, and only 
an Arab or two lingered near the boy who held 
Tamara’s camel, and then gradually slunk away; 
thus, but for Hafis, she was alone — ^alone with 
her thoughts and the Sphinx. 

The strange, mystical face looked straight at 
her from the elevation where she sat. Its sensual 
mocking calm penetrated her brain. The creature 
seemed to be laughing at all humanity — and say- 
ing — There is no beyond — ^live and enjoy the* 
things of the present — ^Eat, drink, and be merry, 
for to-morrow you die, and I — ^I who sit here and 
know, tell you there is no beyond. The things 
you can touch and hold to your bodies are the 
only ones worth grasping.” 

1 


HIS HOUR 


‘^No, no!” said Tamara, half aloud, ‘T will 
not — I will not believe it.” 

“Fool,” said the Sphinx. “What is your soul? 
And if you have one, what have you done with 
it hitherto? Are you any light in the world? — 
No, you have lived upon the orders of others, you 
have let your individuality be crushed these twenty- 
four years — since the day you could speak. Just 
an echo it is — that fine thing, your soul! Show 
it then, if you have one! Do you possess an opin- 
ion ? Not a bit of it. You simply announce plati- 
tudes that you have been taught were the right 
answers to all questions! Believe me, you have 
no soul. So take what you can — a body! You 
certainly have that, one can see it — ^well, snatch 
what it can bring you, since you have not enough 
will to try for higher things. Grasp what you 
may, poor weakling. That is the wisdom sitting 
here for eternity has taught me.” 

Tamara stirred her hands in protest — but she 
knew the indictment was true. Yes, her life had 
been one long commonplace vista of following 
leads — ^like a sheep. 

But was it too late to change? Had she the 

2 


HIS HOUR 


courage? Dared she think for herself? If not^ 
the mystic message of the Sphinx’s smile were 
better followed: ^‘Eat, drink, and be merry, for 
to-morrow you die.” 

The blue of the sky seemed to soothe her, and 
speak of hope. Could any other country pro- 
duce a sky of so deep a sapphire as the night sky 
of Egypt ? All around was intense sensuous 
warmth and stillness almost as light as day. 

How wise she had been to break through the 
conventionality which surrounded her — ^and it 
had required some nerve — ^so as to be able to 
come here alone, on this one of her last nights in 

Egypt- 

She half smiled when she thought of Millicent 
Hardcastle’s face when she had first suggested it. 

‘‘My dear Tamara, what — ^what an extraor- 
dinary thing for a woman to do! Go to the 
Sphinx all alone at two o’clock in the morning. 
Would not people think it very strange?” 

Tamara felt a qualm for a second, but was 
rebellious. 

“Well, perhaps — ^but do you know, Milli- 
cent, I believe I don’t care. That carven block 
3 


HIS HOUR 


of stone has had a curious effect upon me. It 
has made me think as I have never done before. 
I want to take the clearest picture away with 
me — must go/^ 

And even Mrs. Hardcastle’s mild assertion 
that it could equally well be viewed and studied 
at a more reasonable hour did not move Tamara, 
and while her friend slumbered comfortably in 
her bed at Mena House, she had set off, a self- 
conscious feeling of a truant schoolboy exalting 
and yet frightening her. 

Tamara was a widow. James Loraine had 
been everything that a thoroughly respectable 
English husband ought to be. He had treated 
her with kindness, he had given her a comfort- 
able home — ^he had only asked her to spend ten 
months of the year in the country, and he had 
never caused her a moment’s jealousy. 

She could not remember her heart having 
beaten an atom faster — or slower — for his coming 
or going. She had loved him, and her sisters 
and brother, and father, all in the same devoted 
way, and when pneumonia had carried him off 
nearly two years before, she had grieved with the 

4 


HIS HOUR 


measure the loss of any one of them would have 
caused her — ^that was sincerely and tenderly. 

They were such a nice family, Tamara’s! 

For hundreds of years they had lived on the 
same land, doing their duty to their neighbors 
and helping to form that backbone of England 
of which we hear so much nowadays, in its 
passing away. 

They had been members of Parliament, of 
solid Whig, and later of Unionist, views. They 
had been staunch Generals, Chairmen of Quar- 
ter-Sessions, riders to hounds, subscribers to 
charities, rigid church-goers, disciplined, ortho- 
dox, worthy members of society. 

Underdown was their name, and Underwood 
their home. 

That Tamara should have been given that 
Russian appellation, in a group of Gladys, Mabels 
and Dorothys, must have surely indicated that 
fate meant her to follow a line not quite so mapped 
out as that of her sisters’. The very manner of 
her entry into the world was not in accordance 
with the Underdown plan. 

Her mother. Lady Gertrude Underdown, had 

5 


HIS HOUR 


contracted a friendship with the wife of the First 
Secretary of the Russian Embassy. 

Foreigners were not looked upon with favor 
in the home circle, and instead of staying only 
the two months of May and June, as she was 
fully entitled to, in London, she had insisted 
upon remaining for July as well that year — to be 
near her friend Vera and enjoy the gay world. 

The Squire had grumbled, but acquiesced, 
though when afterward a fourth daughter was 
presented to him with a request that she might 
have Princess Vera for a godmother and a Russian 
name to be called by, he felt himself justified in 
carping at fate. 

“Foreign fandangoes,’’ he designated such ideas. 
However, Lady Gertrude was very ill, and had to 
be humored, so the affair took place, and Tamara 
the baby was christened, with due state. 

There were no more Russian suggestions in the 
family; the son and heir who arrived a year later 
became plain Tom, and then Lady Gertrude Under- 
down made her bow to the world and retired to 
the family vault in Underwood Church. 

They were all estimably brought up by an aunt, 

6 


HIS HOUR 


and hardly ever left the country until each one 
came up in turn to be presented at Court, and go 
through a fairly dull season among country neigh- 
bors on the same bent. 

Two of them, including Tamara, had secured 
suitable husbands, and at the age of twenty-three 
years the latter had been left a well-dowered widow. 

She had worn mourning for just the right period, 
had looked after her affairs — ^handed James’ place 
over with a good grace to James’ brother and an 
unliked sister-in-law, and finally, when she was 
wearing grays and mauves, two years almost after 
her loss, she had allowed herself to be persuaded 
into taking a trip to Egypt with her friend, 
Millicent Hardcastle, who was recovering from 
influenza. 

It had caused the greatest flutter at Under- 
wood, this journey abroad! None of them had 
been further than Dresden, where each girl had 
learned German for a year or so before her 
presentation. 

And what had Egypt done for Tamara ? Lifted 
just one pretty white eyelid, perhaps. Stirred 
something which only once or twice in her life she 
7 


HIS HOUR 


had been dimly conscious of. Everything had been 
a kind of shock to her. A shock of an agreeable 
description. And once driving at night in the orange 
groves of Ghezireh, after some open-air fete, the 
heavy scent and intoxicating atmosphere had made 
her blood tingle. She felt it was almost wrong 
that things should so appeal to her senses. Any- 
thing which appealed deliberately to the senses 
had always been considered as more than almost 
wrong at Underwood Chase. 

The senses were improper things which Aunt 
Clara for her part never quite understood why the 
Almighty should have had the bad taste to permit 
in human beings. 

But the Sphinx was again talking to Tamara — 
only this time in the voice of a young man — ^who 
without a word of warning had risen from a bank 
of sand where he had been stretched motionless 
and unperceived. 

‘‘A fine goddess, is she not, Madame,’’ he said. 

And to add to the impertinence of a stranger’s 
addressing her at all, Tamara was further incensed 
by the voice being that of a foreigner! 

But it was an extraordinarily pleasant voice, 

8 


HIS HOUR 


deep and tuneful, and the ‘'Insolent ^ stood over 
six feet high and was as slender as Tamara her- 
self almost — ^in spite of his shoulders and air of 
strength. 

She hardly knew what to answer, he had spoken 
with such ease and assurance, almost with the tone 
of one who hails a fellow worshiper and has a right 
to exchange sympathy. 

Tamara had been startled, too, by the sudden 
rising of the man when she thought she was alone, 
but at last she answered slowly, "‘Yes.” 

“I often come here at night,” he went on, “when 
those devils of tourists have gone back in their 
devil of a tramway. Then you get her alone — ^and 
she says things to you. You think so, too, isn’t it ? ” 

“Yes,” again said Tamara, convulsed with 
wonder at herself for speaking at all. 

“At first I was angry when I saw your camel 
against the sky and saw you come and dismount 
and sit and look. I like to have her all to myself. 
But afterwards when I watched you I saw you 
meant no harm — ^you aren’t a tourist, and so you 
did not matter.” 

“Indeed,” said Tamara, the fine in her grasping 

9 


HIS HOUR 


the situation, the Underdown training resenting 
its unconventionality. 

‘‘Yes,” he continued, unconcerned. “You 
can’t look at that face and feel we any of us matter 
much — can you?” 

“No,” said Tamara. 

“ How many thousand years has she been telling 
people that ? But it drives me mad, angry, 
furious, to see the tourists! I want to strangle 
them all!” 

He clenched his hand and his eyes flashed. 

Tamara peeped up at him — ^he was not looking 
at her — ^but at the Sphinx. She saw that he was 
extremely attractive in spite of having un-English 
clothes, which were not worn with ease. Gray 
flannel of unspeakable cut, and boots which would 
have made her brother Tom shriek with laughter. 
The Underdown part of her whispered, could he 
be quite a gentleman? But when he turned his 
face full upon her in the moonlight, that doubt 
vanished completely. He might even be a very 
great gentleman, she thought. 

“Would you like to see a bit of the Arabian 
Nights?” he asked her. 


10 


HIS HOUR 


Tamara rose. This really ought no to go on, 
this conversation — ^and yet — 

“Yes, I would,” she said. 

“Well, the spell is broken of the Sphinx,” he 
continued. “She can’t talk to me with you there, 
and she can’t talk to you with me near, so let us go 
and see something else that is interesting together. ” 

“ What ? ” asked Tamara. 

“The Sheikh’s village down below. Half the 
people who come don’t realize it is there, and the 
other half would be afraid to ride through it at 
night — ^but they know me and I will take care of 
you.” 

Without the least further hesitation he called 
Hafis and the camel, spoke to them in Arabic, and 
then stood ready to help Tamara up. She seemed 
hypnotized, when she was settled in the high saddle. 
She began to realize that she was going into the 
unknown with a perfect stranger, but she did not 
think of turning back. 

“What do you ride?” she asked. 

“See,” he said, and he made a strange low 
whistle, which was instantly answered by an 
equally strange low whinny of a horse, and a 
2 11 


HIS HOUR 


beautiful Arab appeared from the foot of the 
rocks — ^where all things were in shadow — ^led by 
a little brown boy. 

“I am taking him back with me,” he said, 
“Isn’t he a beauty. I only bought him a week 
ago, and he already knows me.” 

Then he was in the saddle with the lightest 
bound, and Tamara, who had always admired 
Tom on a horse, knew that she had never seen 
anyone who seemed so much a part of his mount 
as this quaint foreigner. “I suppose he is an 
Austrian,” she said to herself, and then added 
with English insular arrogance, “Only Austrians 
are like us.” 

The young man appeared quite indifferent 
to anything she thought. He prepared to lead the 
way down beyond the Sphinx, apparently into the 
desert. 

Now that he was in front of her, Tamara could 
not help admiring the lines of his figure. He 
was certainly a very decent shape, and certainly 
knew how to ride. 

Then it came to her that this was a most singular 
adventure, and the faint pink mounted to her 

12 


HIS HOUR 


clear cheeks when she remembered how dread- 
fully shocked Millicent would be — or any of the 
family! But it was her night of rebellion, so 
things must take their course. 

The young man rode in front until they were 
on the flat desert, then he drew rein and waited 
for her. 

"‘You see,” he said, “we skirt these rocks and 
then we shall ride through the village. One can 
very well imagine it has been the same always.” 

They entered the little town. The streets were 
extremely narrow and the dark houses gave an 
air of mystery — sl speculation — ^what could be going 
on behind those closed shutters? Here and there 
a straight blue-clad flgure slunk away round a cor- 
ner. There was a deep silence and the moonlight 
made the shadows sharp as a knife. Then a shaft 
of red light would shoot from some strange low 
hovel as they passed, and they could see inside a 
circle of Arab Bedouins crouching over a Are. 
There seemed no hilarity, their faces were solemn 
as the grave. 

Presently, in the narrowest and darkest street, 
there was a sound of tom-toms, strains of weird 
13 


HIS HOUR 


music and voices, and through the chinks of the 
half-opened shutters light streamed across the road 
— ^while a small crowd of Arabs were grouped about 
the gate in the wall holding donkeys and a camel. 

‘‘A wedding,” said the young man. ‘‘They have 
escorted the bride. What pleasure to raise a veil 
and see a black face! But each one to his taste.” 

Tamara looked up at the window. She wondered 
what could be happening within — ^were the other 
wives there as well ? She would have liked to have 
asked. 

The young man saw her hesitation and said 
laconically — 

“Well?” 

“They are having a party,” Tamara replied, 
with lame obviousness. 

“Of course,” said the young man. “Weddings 
and funerals — equally good occasions for company. 
They are so wise they leave all to fate; they do not 
tear their eyes out for something they cannot have — 
and fight after disappointment. They are philoso- 
phers, these Arabs.” 

The little crowd round the gate now barred the 
road, half good humoredly, half with menace. 

14 


HIS HOUR 


‘‘So, so,” said the young man, riding in front. 
Then he laughed, and putting his hand in his 
pocket, brought out a quantity of silver and flung 
it among them with merry words in Arabic, while 
he pointed to the windows of the house. 

Then he seized the bridle of Tamara’s camel 
and started his horse forward. The crowd smiled 
now and began scrambling for the baksheesh, and 
so they got through in peace. 

Neither spoke until they were in a silent lane 
again. 

“Sometimes they can be quite disagreeable,” 
he said, “but it is amusing to see it all. The 
Sheikh lives here — ^he fancies the pyramids belong 
to him, just as the Khedive fancies all Egypt is his — 
life is mostly imagination.” 

Now Tamara could see his face better as he 
looked up to her superior height on the camel. 
He had a little moustache and peculiarly chiseled 
lips — ^too chiseled for a man, she thought for a 
moment, until she noticed the Arm jaw. His eyes 
were sleepy — slightly Oriental in their setting, and 
looked very dark, and yet something made her 
think that in daylight they might be blue or gray. 
15 


HIS HOUR 


He did not smile at all; as he spoke his face was 
grave, but when something made him laugh as 
they turned the next corner, it transformed him. 
It was the rippling spontaneous gaiety of a child. 

Two goats had got loose from opposite hovels 
and were butting at one another in the middle of 
the road. 

He pulled up his horse and watched. 

“I like any fight,’’ he said. 

But the goats fied in fear of him, so they went on. 

Tamara was wondering why she felt so stupid. 
She wanted to ask her strange companion a num- 
ber of questions. Who he was? What he was 
doing at the Sphinx ? — and indeed in Egypt. Why 
he had spoken to her at all? — ^and yet appeared 
absolutely indifferent as they rode along! He had 
not asked her a single question or expressed the 
least curiosity. For some reason she felt piqued. 

Presently they emerged at the end of the village 
where there was a small lake left by the retirement 
of the Nile. The moon, almost full, was mirrored 
in it. The scene was one of extreme beauty. The 
pyramids appeared an old rose pink, and every- 
thing else in tones of sapphire — ^not the green-blue 
16 


HIS HOUR 


of moonlight in other countries. All was breath- 
lessly still and lifeless. Only they two, and the 
camel boys, alone in the night. 

The dark line of trees which border the road 
faced them, and they rode slowly in that direction. 

‘‘You are going to the hotel, I suppose?” he 
said. “I will see you safely to it.” 

And they climbed the bank on to the avenue 
from Cairo. 

“And you?” Tamara could not prevent herself 
from asking. “ Where do you go ? ” 

“To hell, sometimes,” he answered, and his 
eyes were full of mist, “but to-night I shall go to 
bed for a change.” 

Tamara was nonplussed. She felt intensely 
commonplace. She was even a little cross with 
herself. Why had she asked a question? 

The Arab horse now took it into his head to 
curvet and bound in the air for no apparent reason, 
but the young man did not stir an inch — ^he laughed. 

“Go on, my beauty,” he said. “I like you 
to be so. It shows you are alive.” 

As they approached the hotel, Tamara began 
to hope no one would see them. No one who 
17 


HIS HOUR 


could tell Millicent that she had a companion. 
She bent down and said rather primly to the 
young man who was again at her side: 

“I am quite safe now, thank you. I need not 
trouble you any further. Good-bye! and I am so 
obliged to you for showing me a new way home.” 

He looked up at her, and his whole face was 
lit with a whimsical smile. 

“Yes, at the gate,” he said. “Don’t be ner- 
vous. I will go at the gate.” 

Tamara did not speak, and presently they 
came to the turning into the hotel. Then he 
stopped. 

“I suppose we shall meet again some day,” 
he said. “They have a proverb here, ‘Meet 
before dawn — ^part not till dawn.’ They see into 
the future in a few drops of water in any hollow 
thing. Well, good-night” — ^and before she could 
answer he was off beyond the hotel up the road 
and then turning to the right on a sand-path, 
galloped out of sight into what must be the vast 
desert. 

Where on earth could he be going to? — pos- 
sibly the devil — ^if one knew. 

18 


CHAPTER II 


^jg^PT^CHEN Tamara woke in the morning 
^ ^ y the recollection of her camel ride 
seemed like a dream. She sat for 
a long time at the window of her room looking 
out toward the green world and Cairo. She 
was trying to adjust things in her mind. This 
stranger had certainly produced an efifect upon her. 

She wondered who he was, and how he would 
look in daylight — ^and above all whither he had 
galloped into the desert. Then she wondered 
at herself. The whole thing was so out of her 
line — so bizarre — ^in a life of carefully balanced 
proprieties. And were the thoughts the Sphinx 
had awaked in her brain true? Yes, certainly 
she had been ruled by others always — and had 
never developed her own soul. 

She was very sensitive — ^that last whimsical 
smile of the unknown had humiliated her. She 
felt he had laughed at her prim propriety in 
wishing to get rid of him before the gate. Indeed, 
19 


HIS HOUR 


she suddenly felt he might laugh at a good many 
of the things she did. And this ruflBed her serenity. 
She put up her slender hands and pushed the thick 
hair back from her forehead with an impatient 
gesture. It all made her dissatisfied with her- 
self and full of unrest. 

‘‘You don’t tell me a thing about your Sphinx 
excursion last night, Tamara,” Millicent Hard- 
castle said at breakfast, rather peevishly. They 
were sipping coffee together in the latter’s room 
in dressing-gowns. “Was it nice, and had the 
tourists quite departed?” 

“It was wonderful!” and Tamara leant back 
and looked into distance. “There were no tour- 
ists, and it made me think a number of new things 
— ^we seem such ordinary people, Millicent.” 

Mrs. Hardcastle glanced up surprised, not to 
say offended, with coffee cup poised in the air. 

“Yes — ^you may wonder, but it is true, Milly — 
we do the same things every day, and think the 
same thoughts, and are just thoroughly common- 
place and uninteresting.” 

“And you came to these conclusions from gazing 
at the Sphinx ?*” Mrs. Hardcastle asked. 

20 


HIS HOUR 


‘‘Yes/’ said Tamara, the pink deepening for a 
moment in her cheeks. In her whole life she hardly 
ever had had a secret. “I sat there, Millicent, in the 
sand opposite the strange image, and it seemed to 
smile and mock at all little things; it appeared 
perfectly ridiculous that we pay so much attention 
to what the world says or thinks. I could not help 
looking back to the time when you and I were at 
Dresden together. What dull lives we have both 
led since! Yours perhaps more filled than mine 
has been, because you have children; but really we 
have both been browsing like sheep. ” 

Mrs. Hardcastle now was almost irritated. 

“I cannot agree with you,” she said. “Our 
lives have been full of good and pleasant things — 
and I hope, dear, we have both done our duty. ” 
This, of course, ended the matter! It was so 
undoubtedly true — each had done her duty. 

After breakfast they started for a last donkey- 
ride, as they must return to Cairo in time for the 
Khedive’s ball that night, which, as distinguished 
English ladies, they were being taken to by their 
compatriots at the Agency. Then on the morrow 
they were to start for Europe. Mrs. Hardcastle 
21 


HIS HOUR 


could not spare more time away from her babies. 
Their visit had only been of four short weeks, and 
now it was December 27, and home and husband 
called her. 

For Tamara’s part, she could do as she pleased; 
indeed, for two pins she would have stayed on in 
Egypt. 

But that was not the intention of fate! 

“ Do let us go up that sand-path, Millicent, ” she 
said, when they turned out of the hotel gate. We 
have never been there, and I would like to see 
where it leads to — ^perhaps we shall get quite a new 
vista from the top ” 

And so they went. 

What she expected to find she did not ask herself. 
In any case they rode on, eventually coming out at 
a small enclosure where stood a sort of bungalow 
in those days — ^it is probably pulled down now, but 
then it stood with a wonderful view over the desert, 
and over the green world. Tamara had vaguely 
observed it in the distance before, but imagined 
it to be some water-tower of the hotel, it was so 
bare and gaunt. It had been built by some mad 
Italian, they heard afterward, for rest and quiet. 

22 


HIS HOUR 


It was a quaint place with tiny windows high up, 
evidently to light a studio, and there was a veranda 
to look at the view towards the Nile. 

When they got fairly close they could see that 
on this veranda a young man was stretched at full 
length. A long wicker chair supported him, while 
he read a French novel. They — ^at least Tamara — 
could see the yellow back of the book, and also, 
one regrets to add, she was conscious that the 
young man was only clothed in blue and white 
striped silk pyjamas! — the jacket of which was 
open and showed his chest — ^and one foot, stretched 
out and hanging over the back of another low chair, 
was — ^actually bare! 

Mrs. Hardcastle touched her donkey and hurried 
past — the path went so very near this unseemly 
sight! And Tamara followed, but not before the 
young man had time to raise himself and frown 
with fury. She almost imagined she heard him 
saying ‘‘Those devils of tourists!” Then with the 
corner of her eye ere they got out of sight, she per- 
ceived that a blue-clad Arab brought coffee on a 
little tray. 

She glowed with annoyance. Did he think she 

23 


HIS HOUR 


had come to look at him? Did he — ^he certainly 
was quite uninterested, for he must have recog- 
nized her; but perhaps not; people look so different 
in large straw hats to what they appear with scarves 
of chiffon tied over their heads. But why had she 
come this way at all ? She wished a thousand times 
she had suggested going round the pyramids 
instead. 

‘^Tamara,’’ said Mrs. Hardcastle, when they 
were safely descending the further sand-path, with 
no unclothed young giant in view, ‘‘did you see 
there was a man in that chair? What a dreadful 
person to be lying on the balcony — ^undressed!” 

“I never noticed,” said Tamara, without a 
blush. “I am surprised at you having looked, 
Millie — ^when this view is so fine.” 

“But, my dear child, I could not possibly help 
seeing him. How you did not notice, I can’t think; 
he had pyjamas on, Tamara — and hare feet!^^ 

Mrs. Hardcastle almost whispered the last 
terrible words. 

“I suppose he felt hot,” said Tamara; “it is a 
grilling day.” 

“But really, dear, no nice people, in any weather, 

24 


HIS HOUR 


remain — er — ^undressed at twelve o’clock in the 
day for passers-by to look at — do they ?” 

‘‘Well, perhaps he isn’t a nice person,” allowed 
Tamara. “He may be mad. What was he like, 
since you saw so much, Millicent?” 

Mrs. Hardcastle glaiiced over her shoulder 
reproachfully. “You really speak as though I 
had looked on purpose,” she said. “He seemed 
very long — ^and not fat. I suppose, as his hair was 
not very dark, he must be an Englishman. ” 

“Oh, dear, no! exclaimed Tamara. “Not an 
Englishman. ” Then seeing her friend’s expression 
of surprise, “I mean, it isn’t likely an Englishman 
would lie on his balcony in pyjamas — at least not 
the ones we see in Cairo; they — they are too busy, 
aren’t they?” 

This miserably lame explanation seemed to sat- 
isfy Millicent. It was too hot and too disagree- 
able, she felt, clinging to the donkey while it 
descended the steep path, to continue the subject 
further, having to turn one’s head over the 
shoulder like that; but when they got on the 
broad level she began again: 

“Possibly it was a madman, Tamara, sent here 

25 


HIS HOUR 


with a keeper — ^in that out-of-the-way place. How 
fortunate we had the donkey boys with us!” 

Tamara laughed. 

“You dear goose, Millie, he couldn’t have 
eaten us up, you know; and he was not doing 
the least harm, poor thing. We should not have 
gone that way; it may have been his private path.” 

“Still, no one should lie about undressed,” 
Mrs. Hardcastle protested. “It is not at all nice. 
Girls might have been riding with us, and how 
dreadful it would have been then.” 

“Let us forget it, pet!” Tamara laughed, 
“and trot on and get some real exercise.” 

So off they started. 

Just as they were turning out of the hotel gate, 
late in the same afternoon, a young man on an 
Arab horse passed the carriage. He was in 
ordinary riding dress, and looked a slim, graceful 
sight as he trotted ahead. 

He never glanced their way. But while Tamara 
felt a sudden emotion of sorts, Mrs. Hardcastle 
exclaimed : 

“Look, look! I am sure that is he — the mad- 
man who wore those pyjamas.” 

26 


CHAPTER III 


^ ^ HE Khedive’s ball was a fairly fine sight, 

M Tamara thought, but driving through 

the streets took such a ridiculously 
long time, the crowd was so great. The palace 
itself was, and probably is still, like all other 
palaces that are decorated in that nondescript 
style of Third Empire France — ^not a thing 
of beauty. But the levde uniforms of the offi- 
cers gave an air of brilliance contrasted with 
the civilians of the Government of Egypt. Tamara 
thought their dress very ugly, it reminded her 
of a clergyman’s at a children’s party, where he 
has been decorated with caps and sham orders 
from the crackers to amuse the little guests. It 
seemed strange to see the English faces beneath 
the fez. She and Millicent Hardcastle walked 
about and talked to their friends. There were 
many smart young gallants in the regiments then 
quartered in Cairo, who enjoyed dancing with 
the slender, youthful widow with the good jewels 

8 27 


HIS HOUR 


and pretty dress, and soon Tamara found herself 
whirling with a gay hussar. 

“Let us stop near the Royalties and look at 
the Russians,” he said. “You know, a Grand 
Duke arrived to-day, and must be here to-night.” 

They came to a standstill close to the little 
group surrounding the Khedive, and amid the 
splendid uniforms of the Grand Duke’s suite there 
was one of scarlet, the like of which Tamara had 
never seen before. 

Afterward she learned it was a Cossack of the 
Emperor’s escort, but at the moment it seemed 
like a gorgeous fancy dress. The high boots and 
long, strangely graceful coat, cut with an Eastern 
hang, the white under-dress, the way the loose 
scarlet sleeves fell at the wrist, showing the white 
tight ones, the gold and silver trimmings and 
the arms, stuck in the quaint belt, all pleased 
her eye extremely; and then she recognized its 
wearer as the young man of the Sphinx. 

How dress changes a person! she thought. 
He looked at ease now in this gorgeous garment, 
and a very prince for a fairy tale. That accounted 
for the dreadful gray flannel — ^he was a soldier 
28 


HIS HOUR 


and unaccustomed to wearing ordinary clothes. 
She had heard that in foreign countries even the 
officers wore their uniforms habitually; not as 
the English do, merely as an irksome duty. 

He did not appear to see her, but when she 
began dancing again, and paused once more for 
breath, she was close to him as he stood some way 
apart and alone. 

Their eyes met. His had the same whimsical 
provoking smile in them which angered and yet 
attracted her. He made no move to bow to her, 
nor did he take any steps to be introduced. She 
burnt with annoyance. 

‘‘He might at least have been presented; it is 
too impertinent otherwise!” she thought. 

She knew she was looking her best: a fair, dis- 
tinguished woman as young and fresh as a girl. 
Hardly a man in the room was unconscious of her 
presence. Anger lent an extra brightness to her 
eyes and cheeks. She went on dancing wildly. 

The next time she was near the stranger was 
some half an hour later, although not once was 
she able to banish the scarlet form from her view. 
He did not dance. He talked now and then to 
29 


HIS HOUR 


his Prince, and then he was presented to the offi- 
cial ladies, with the rest of the suite. He looked 
bored. 

Tamara would not ask his name, which she 
could have done with ease, as every one was inter- 
ested in the Russians and glad to talk about them. 
She avoided the English group of bigwigs where 
they were standing, and where she had her place — 
And when they passed the tall Cossack again she 
turned upon him a witheringly unconscious 
glance. 

However, this was not to continue the whole 
night, for presently she was requested by one of 
the attaches to come and be presented to the 
Grand Duke, and when she had made her curtsey 
the suite came up in turn. 

‘‘Prince Milaslavski,’^ and she heard one of 
his friends call him “Gritzko.’’ The name fell 
pleasantly on her ears — ^“Gritzko”! Why was 
he such a wretch as to humiliate her so? She 
felt horribly small. She ought never to have let 
him speak to her at the Sphinx. She was being 
thoroughly punished for her unconventionality 
now! 


30 


HIS HOUR 


She said a few words in French to each of 
the others, and then, as he still stood there with 
that provoking smile in his splendid eyes, she 
turned away almost biting her lip with shame 
and rage. 

Before she knew it she was dancing with a 
fierce count in green and silver. Their conver- 
sation was interesting. 

“You are here since long, Madame?” 

“No, Monsieur, only a few weeks, and I go 
to-morrow.” 

“Ah! you dance beautifully!” 

“ Do I ? I am glad 

The Russian Count held her very tightly, and 
they stopped quite out of breath, where the screened 
windows half-hid the poor ladies of the harem, 
who watched the throng from their safe retreat. 

The Count bowed — ^and Tamara bowed. A 
section, not the whole dance, was evidently the 
Russian custom. 

Then a voice said close to her ear: 

“May I, too, have the honor of a turn, 
Madame?” and she looked up into the eyes of 
the Prince. 


31 


HIS HOUR 


For a second she hesitated. Her first impulse 
was to scornfully say no, but she quickly realized 
that would be undignified and absurd; so she 
said yes, coldly, and let him place his arm about 
her. The band was playing a particularly sen- 
suous valse, which drove all young people mad 
that year, and — ^if the Count had danced well — 
this man’s movements were heaven. Tamara did 
not speak a word. She purposely did not look 
at him, but drooped her proud head so that the 
hashing diamonds of her tiara were all he could 
have seen of her. 

He put no special meaning into the way he 
held her; he just danced divinely: but there was 
something in the creature himself of a perfectly 
annoying attractiveness — or so it seemed to 
Tamara. 

They at last paused for a moment, and then 
he spoke. He made not the slightest allusion to 
the Sphinx incident. He spoke gravely of Cairo, 
and the polo, and the races, and said that his 
Grand Duke had arrived that day. He was not 
on his staff, but was indeed travelling in Egypt 
for his own amusement and delectation, he said. 
32 


HIS HOUR 


He had been there since November, it seemed, and 
had been up the Nile, and had fortunately been 
able to secure a little bungalow at Mena, where 
he could spend some hours of peace. 

Then Tamara laughed. She remembered Milli- 
cent Hardcastle’s consternation over those unfor- 
tunate pyjamas. She wondered if Millicent would 
realize that she — ^Tamara — ^was dancing with their 
wearer now! When she laughed he put his arm 
around her once more and began dancing. This 
time he held her rather closely, and suddenly as 
she laughed again to herself provokingly, he clasped 
her tight. 

‘‘If you laugh like that I will kiss you — ^here in 
the room,” he said. 

Tamara stopped dead short. She blazed with 
anger. 

“How dare you be so impertinent?” she said. 

They were up in a corner; everyone’s back 
was turned to them happily, for in one second he 
had bent and kissed her neck. It was done with 
such incredible swiftness and audacity that even 
had they been observed it must only have looked 
as though he bent to pick up something she had 

33 


HIS HOUR 


dropped. But the kiss burned into Tamara’s 
flesh. 

She could hardly keep the tears of outraged 
pride from her eyes. 

“How dare you! How dare you!” she hissed. 
“Truly you are making me ashamed of having 
let you speak to me last night!” 

“Last night?” he said, while he forcibly drew 
her hand within his arm and began walking 
toward the group of her friends. “Last night 
you were afraid some should see me from the hotel, 
and to-night you dare me. Do it once more and 
I will kiss your lips!” 

Tamara went dead white; she felt as if the 
ground were sinking beneath her feet; her knees 
trembled. In all her smooth, conventionally or- 
dered life she had never experienced such a 
strong emotion. 

The Prince glanced at her, and the fierceness 
went out of his eyes. He bowed gravely with 
the most courtly homage, and left her standing by 
Millicent’s side. 

Then Tamara remembered she was a lady, 
and that tenue was expected of her; so she turned 

34 


HIS HOUR 


to her friend gaily and said how she was enjoying 
the ball; but her fine nostrils quivered at intervals 
for the rest of the night. 

“Thank God!” she said to herself, when a 
few hours later she got into bed — Thank God! 
we are going to-morrow. I shall never see him 
again, and no one shall ever know.” 


CHAPTER IV 


day they started, escorted to the 

9 W station by a troup of gushing friends. 

Their compartment was a bower of 
flowers, and as each moment went by Tamara’s 
equanimity was restored by the thought that she 
would soon be out of the land of her disgrace. 

It is a tiresome journey to Alexandria — dusty 
and glaring and not of great interest. They hurried 
on board the ship when they arrived, without even 
glancing at their fellow passengers following in the 
gangway. Neither woman was a perfect sailor 
and both were quite overcome with fatigue. It 
promised to be a disagreeable night, too, so they 
retired at once to their cabins, and were soon 
asleep. 

The next day, which was Sunday, the wind blew, 
but by the afternoon calmed down again, and Ta- 
mara decided to dress and go on deck. 

“Mrs. Hardcastle went up some hours ago; she 
was ready for luncheon, ma’am,” her maid told her. 
36 


HIS HOUR 


‘"She left a message for you to join her when you 
woke.” 

The ship was the usual sort of ship that goes 
from Alexandria to Trieste, and the two English 
ladies had secured places for their chairs in the 
most protected spot. Tamara rather looked for- 
ward to being able to sit there in the moonlight 
and enjoy the Mediterranean. 

Her maid preceded her with her rug and cushion 
and book, and it was not until she was quite settled 
that she took cognizance of an empty chair at her 
other side. 

“You lazy child!” Millicent Hardcastle said. 
“To sleep all day like this! It has been quite 
beautiful since luncheon, and I have had a most 
agreeable time. That extremely polite nice young 
Russian Prince we met at the Khedive’s ball is here, 
dear; indeed, that is his chair next you. He is 
with Stephen Strong. We have been talking for 
hours.” 

Tamara felt suddenly almost cold. 

“I never saw him in the train or coming on 
board,” she said, with almost a gasp. 

“Nor did I, and yet he must have been just 

37 


HIS HOUR 


behind us. Our places at meals are next him, 
too. So fortunate he was introduced, because one 
could not talk to a strange man, even on a boat. 
I never can understand those people who pick up 
acquaintances promiscuously; can you, dear?’’ 

“No,” said Tamara, feebly. 

She was pondering what to do. She could not 
decline to know the Prince without making some 
explanation to Millicent. She also could not 
flatter him so much. She must just be icily cold, 
and if he should be further impertinent she could 
remain in her cabin. 

But what an annoying contretemps! And she 
had thought she should never see him again ! — and 
here until Wednesday afternoon, she would be 
constantly reminded of the most disgraceful inci- 
dent in her career. All brought upon herself, too, 
by her own action in having lapsed from the rigid 
rules in which Aunt Clara had brought her up. 

If she had not answered him at the Sphinx — ^he 
could not have — ^but she refused to dwell upon the 
shame of this recollection. 

She had quite half an hour to grow calm before 
the cause of her unrest came even into sight, and 
38 


HIS HOUR 


when he did, it was to walk past in the company of 
their old friend, Stephen Strong. 

The Prince raised his cap gravely, and Tamara 
comforted herself by noticing again how badly 
his clothes fitted him! How unsuitable, and even 
ridiculous, they were to English eyes — ^That gave 
her pleasure! Also she must have a little fun with 
Millicent. 

“Has it struck you, Millie, the Prince is the 
same young man we saw in the pyjamas on the 
veranda ? I am suprised at your speaking to such 
a person, even if he has been introduced!’* 

Mrs. Hardcastle raised an aggrieved head. 

“Really, Tamara,” she said, “I had altogether 
forgotten that unpleasant incident. I wish you 
had not reminded me of it. He is a most respect- 
ful, modest, unassuming young man. I am sure 
he would be dreadfully uncomfortable if he were 
aware we had seen him so.” 

“I think he looked better like that than he does 
now,” Tamara rejoined, spitefully. “Did you 
ever see such clothes ?” 

Mrs. Hardcastle whisked right round in her 
chair and stared at her friend. She was shocked, 
39 


HIS HOUR 


in the first place, that Tamara should speak 
so lightly of a breach of decorum; and, secondly, 
she was astonished at another aspect of the case. 

‘T thought you never saw him at all that morn- 
ing ! ” she exclaimed. 

Tamara was nettled. 

“Your description was so vivid; besides, I looked 
back!” 

“You looked back! Tamara! after I had told you 
he wasn’t dressed! My dear, how could you?” 

“Well, I did. — ^Hush! he is coming toward us,” 
and Tamara hurriedly opened a book and looked 
down. 

“At last Mrs. Loraine has arrived on deck,” 
she heard Millicent say; and then, for convention’s 
sake she was obliged to glance up and bow coldly. 

The young man did not seem the least impressed ; 
he sat down and pulled his rug round his knees and 
gazed out at the sea. The sun had set, and the 
moon would soon rise in all her full glory. 

There was hardly twilight and the ship’s electric 
lights were already being lit. The old Englishman, 
Stephen Strong, greeted her and took the chair at 
Mrs. Hardcastle’s other side. That lady was in 
40 


HIS HOUR 


one of her chatty moods, when each nicely ex- 
pressed sentence fell from her lips directly after 
the other — ^all so pleasant and easy to understand. 
No one ever felt with Millicent he need use an 
atom of brain. These are the women men like. 

Tamara pretended to read her book, but she 
was conscious of the near proximity of the Prince. 
Nothing so magnetic in the way of a personality 
had ever crossed her path as yet. 

He sat as still as a statue gazing at the sea. An 
uncontrollable desire to look at him shook Tamara, 
but she dominated it. The discomfort at last 
grew so great that she almost trembled. 

Then he spoke: 

^‘Have you cat’s eyes ?” he asked. 

Now, when there was a legitimate chance to 
look at him, she found her orbs glued to her book. 

“Of course not!” she said, icily. 

“Then of what use to pretend you are reading 
in this gloom ? The miserable lantern is not good 
for a gleam.” 

Tamara was silent. She even turned a page. 
She would be irritating, too ! 

“That ball was a sight,” he continued. “Did 

41 


HIS HOUR 


you see the harem ladies peeping from their 
cage? They looked fat and ugly enough to be 
wisely kept there. What a lot of fools they must 
have thought us, cavorting for their amusement. ” 

“Poor women said Tamara. Her voice was 
the primmest thing in voices she had ever heard. 

“Why poor women?” he asked. “They have 
all the pleasures of the body, and no anxieties; 
nothing but the little excitement of trying now and 
then to poison their rivals! It is the poor Khedive! 
— ^Think of his having to wade through all that 
fat mass to find one pretty one!” 

The tone of this conversation displeased Tamara. 
She did not wish to enter into the ethics of the 
harem. She wished he would be silent again, only 
that deep voice of his was so pleasant! His English 
was wonderful, too, with hardly the least accent; 
and when she did allow herself to look at him she 
could not help admiring the way his hair grew, 
back from a forehead purely Greek. His nose 
was short and rather square, while those too beau- 
tifully chiseled lips of his had an expression of 
extraordinary charm. His whole personality 
breathed attraction, every human being who 

42 


HIS HOUR 


approached him was conscious of it. As for his 
eyes, they were enormous, with broad full lids, 
mystical, passionate, and yet unconcerned. Always 
they suggested something Eastern, though on the 
whole he was fair. Tamara’s own soft brown hair 
was only a shade lighter than his. 

She was not sure yet, but now thought his eyes 
were gray. 

She could have asked him a number of questions 
she wanted answered, but she refrained. He 
suddenly turned and looked at her full in the face. 
He had been gazing fixedly at the sea, and these 
movements of quickness were disconcerting, es- 
pecially as Tamara found herself caught in the act 
of studying his features. 

‘‘What on earth made you go to the Sphinx?” 
he asked. 

Anger rose in Tamara; the inference was not 
flattering, in his speech, or the tone in which he 
uttered it. 

“To count the number of stones the creature is 
made of, of course,” she said. “Those technical 
things are what one would go for at that time of 
night.” 


4 


43 


HIS HOUR 


And now her companion rippled with laughter, 
infectious, joyous laughter. 

“Ah, you are not so stupid as I thought!” he 
said, frankly. “You looked poetic and fine with 
that gauze scarf round your head sitting there — 
and then afterwards. Wheugh! it was like a pretty 
wax doll. I regretted having wasted the village on 
you. All that is full of meaning for me. ” 

Tamara was interested in spite of her will to 
remain reserved, although she resented the wax- 
doll part. 

“Yes?” — ^she faltered. 

“You can learn all the lessons you want in life 
from the Sphinx,” he went on. “What paltry 
atoms you and I are! and how little we matter to 
anyone. but ourselves! She is cruel, too, and does 
not hesitate to tear one in pieces if she wishes, and 
she could make one ready to get drunk on blood.” 

Tamara rounded her sweet eyes. 

“Then the village there, full of men with the 
passions of animals, living from father to son for- 
ever the same, wailing for a death, rejoicing at a 
birth, taking strong physical pleasure in their 
marriage rights and their women, and beating 
44 


HIS HOUR 


them when they are tired; but you are too civilized 
in your country to understand any of these things. ” 

Tamara was stirred; she felt she ought to be 
shocked. 

Contrary to her determination, she asked a 
question : 

“Then you are not civilized in yours?” 

“Not nearly so badly,” he said. “The primitive 
forces of life still give us emotions, when we are 
not wild; when we are then it is the jolliest hell.” 

Tamara was almost repulsed. How could one 
be so odd as this man? she thought. Was he a 
type, or was he mad, or just only most annoyingly 
attractive and different from any one else? She 
found herself thrilled. Then with a subtle change 
he turned and almost tenderly wrapped the rug, 
which had blown a little down, more securely 
round her. 

“You have such a small white face,” he said, 
the words a caress. “One must see that you are 
warm and the naughty winds do not blow you 
away. ” 

Tamara shivered; she could not have told why. 

After this the conversation became general. 

45 


HIS HOUR 


Millicent joined in with her obvious remarks. The 
sea was much smoother; they would be able to 
eat some dinner; she had heard there was a gipsy 
troupe on board in the third-class, and how nice it 
would be to have some music! 

And something angered Tamara in the way the 
Prince assisted in all this, out-commonplacing her 
friend in commonplaces with the suavest politeness, 
while his grave face betrayed him not even by a 
twinkle in the eye. Only when he caught hers; 
then he laughed a sudden short laugh, and he 
whispered: 

‘‘What a perfect woman! everything in the right 
place. Heaven ! at the best times she would do her 
knitting, and hand one a child every year! I’ll 
marry when I can find a wife like that!” 

Tamara was furious. She resented his ridicule 
of Millicent, and she was horrified at the whole 
speech; so, gathering her rug together, she said she 
was cold, and asked Mr. Strong to pace the deck 
with her. Nor would she take the faintest further 
notice of the Prince, until they all went below to 
the evening meal. 

At dinner he seemed to be practically a stranger 

46 


HIS HOUR 


again. He was Tamara’s neighbor, but he risked 
no startling speeches; in fact, he hardly spoke to 
her, contenting himself with discussing seafaring 
matters with the captain, and an occasional re- 
mark to Stephen Strong, who sat beyond Mrs. 
Hardcastle. It was unnecessary for her to have 
decided beforehand to snub him; he did not give 
her the chance. 


CHAPTER V 


O N Monday they heard they would arrive 
at Brindisi on the Tuesday morning, and 
Tamara persuaded Mrs. Hardcastle to 
agree to disembarking there instead of going on to 
Trieste. 

‘‘We shall be home all the sooner,’’ she said. 
And so it was settled. But there was still all Mon- 
day to be got through. 

It was a perfect day, the blue Mediterranean 
was not belying its name. Tamara felt in great 
spirits, as she came on deck at about eleven o’clock, 
to find Millicent taking a vigorous walk round and 
round with the Russian Prince. They seemed to 
be laughing and chattering like old friends. Again 
Tamara resented it. 

“He is only making fun of poor Millie,” she 
thought, “who never sees a thing,” and she settled 
herself in her chair and let her eyes feast on the 
blue sea 

What should she do with her life? This taste 

48 


HIS HOUR 


of change and foreign skies had unsettled her. 
How could she return to Underwood and the hum- 
drum everyday existence there? She seemed to 
see it mapped out on a plain as one who stood on 
a mountain. She seemed to realize that always 
there had been dormant in her some difference 
from the others. She remembered now how often 
she perceived things that none of them saw, and 
she knew it was because of this that it had grown 
into a habit with her from early childhood to sup- 
press the expression of her thoughts, and keep 
them to herself — until outwardly, at all events, 
she was of the same stolid mould as her family. 
The dears! they could not help it. 

But about one point she was determined. She 
would think and act for herself in future. Aunt 
Clara’s frown should not prohibit any book or any 
action. The world should teach her what it could. 

Tamara had received a solid education; now 
she would profit by it, and instead of letting all 
Tier knowledge lie like a bulb in a root-house, she 
would plant it and tend it, and would hope to see 
sweet fiowers springing forth. 

“Next summer I shall be twenty-five years old,” 

49 


HIS HOUR 


she said to herself, “and the whole thing has been 
a waste.’’ 

Each time the energetic promenaders passed 
her chair she heard a few words of their conver- 
sation, on hunting often, and the dogs, and the 
children, Bertie’s cleverness, and Muriel’s chicken- 
pox, but always the Prince seemed interested and 
polite. 

Presently the old man, Stephen Strong, came 
up and took Mrs. Hardcastle’s chair. 

“May I disturb your meditations?” he said. 
“You look so wise.” 

“No, I am foolish,” Tamara answered. “Now 
you who know the world must come and talk and 
teach me its meaning.” 

He was rather a wonderful old man, Stephen 
Strong, purely English to look at, and purely cos- 
mopolitan in habits and life. He had been in the 
diplomatic service years ago, and had been in 
Egypt in the gorgeous Ismail time; then a fortune 
came his way, and he traveled the earth over. 
There were years spent in Vienna and Petersburg 
and Paris, and always the early winter back in the 
land of the Sphinx. 


50 


HIS HOUR 


‘‘The world,” he said, as he arranged himself 
in the chair, “is an extremely pleasant place if 
one takes it as it is, and does not quarrel with it. 
One must not be intolerant, and one must not be 
hypercritical. See it all and make allowances for 
the weakness of the human beings who inhabit it.” 

“Yes,” said Tamara, “I know you are right; 
but so many of us belong to a tribe who think their 
point of view the only one. I do, for instance; 
that is why I say I am foolish.” 

The walkers passed again. 

“There is a type for you to study,” Stephen 
Strong said. “Prince Milaslavski. I have known 
him for many years, since he was a child almost; 
he is about twenty-nine or thirty now, and really 
a rather interesting personality.” 

“Yes,” said Tamara, honestly, “I feel that. 
Tell me about him?” 

Stephen Strong lit a cigar and puffed for a few 
seconds, then he settled himself with the air of 
a person beginning a narrative. 

“ He came into his vast fortune rather too young, 
and lived rather fiercely. His mother was a 
Basmanoff ; that means a kind of Croesus in Russia. 
51 


HIS HOUR 


He is a great favorite with the powers that be, 
and is in the Cossacks of the Escort. Something 
in their wild freedom appealed to him more than 
any other corps. He is a Cossack himself on the 
mother’s side, and the blood is all rather wild, you 
know.” 

Tamara looked as she felt — interested. 

‘‘They tell the most tremendous stories about 
him,” the old man went on, “hugely exaggerated, 
of course; but the fact remains, he is a fascinating, 
restless, dauntless character.” 

“What sort of stories?” asked Tamara, 
timidly. 

“Not all fit for your ears, gentle lady,” laughed 
Stephen Strong. “Sheer devilment, mostly. It 
was the amusement in the beginning to dare him 
to anything, the maddest feats. He ran off with 
a nun once, it is said, for a bet, and deposited her 
in the house of the man she had loved before her 
vows were taken. That was in Poland. Then 
he has orgies sometimes at his country place, when 
every one is mad for three days on end. It causes 
terrible scandal. Then he comes back like a lamb, 
and purrs to all the old ladies. They say he obeys 
52 


HIS HOUR 


neither God nor the Devil — only the Emperor on 
this earth.’’ 

“How dreadful!” force of habit made Tamara 
say, while her thoughts unconsciously ran into 
interested fascination. 

“He is absolutely fearless, and as cool as an 
Englishman, and there are not any mean things 
told about him, though,” Steven Strong continued, 
“and indeed sometimes he lives the simplest 
country life with his horses and dogs, and his own 
people worship him, I believe. But there is no 
wildest prank he is incapable of if his blood 
is up.” 

“I think he looks like it,” said Tamara. “Is it 
because he habitually wears uniform that his ordi- 
nary clothes fit so badly? To our eyes he seems 
dressed like some commis voyageur.” 

“Of course,” said Stephen Strong. “And even 
in Paris I don’t suppose you would approve of him 
in that respect, but if you could see him in Peters- 
burg, then I believe you would be like all the rest.” 

“All which rest?” asked Tamara. 

“Women. They simply adore him. Bohe- 
mians, great ladies, actresses, dancers, and ” 

53 


HIS HOUR 


He was just going to mention those of another 
world, when he felt Tamara would hardly under- 
stand him, so he stopped short. 

Something in her rose up in arms. 

‘‘It shows how foolish they are,” she said. 

Stephen Strong glanced at her sideways, and if 
she could have read his thoughts they were: 

“This sweet Englishwoman is under Gritzko’s 
spell already, and how she is battling against it! 
She won’t have a chance, though, if he makes up 
his mind to win.” 

But Tamara, for all her gentle features, was no 
weakling; only her life had been a long hiber- 
nation; and now the spring had come, and soon 
the time of the finding of honey and a new life. 

“What can he be talking about to my friend, 
Mr. Strong?” she asked, as the two passed again. 
“Millicent is one of the last women he can have 
anything in common with; she would simply die 
of horror if she heard any of these stories — ^and he 
can’t be interested in a word she says.” 

“He always does the unexpected,” and Stephen 
Strong laughed as he said it. He himself was 
amused at this ill-matched pair. 

54 


HIS HOUR 


“Mrs, Hardcastle is agreeable to look at, too,’^ 
he continued. 

Tamara smiled scornfully. 

“That is the lowest view to take. One should 
be above material appearance.” 

“Charming lady!” said Stephen Strong. “Yes, 
indeed you do not know the world.” 

Tamara was not angry. She looked at him and 
smiled, showing her beautiful teeth. 

“Of course you think me a goose,” she said, 
“but I warned you I was one. Tell me, shall I 
ever grow out of it — tell me, you who know.^^” 

“If the teacher is young and handsome enough 
to make your heart beat,” said her old com- 
panion. And then Millicent and the Prince joined 
them. 

Mrs. Hardcastle’s round blue eyes were flash- 
ing brightly, and her fresh face was aglow with 
exercise and enjoyment. 

“Tamara dear, you are too incorrigibly lazy. 
Why do you sit here instead of taking exercise? 
and you have no idea of the interesting things the 
Prince has been telling me. All about a Russian 
poet called — oh, I can’t pronounce the name, 
55 


HIS HOUR 


but who wrote of a devil — ^not exactly Faust, you 
know, though something like it.” 

Tamara noticed that amused, whimsical, mock- 
ing gleam in the Cossack’s great eyes, but Millicent 
went gaily oil, unconscious of anything but herself. 

‘T mean those mythical, strange sort of devils 
who come to earth, you know, and — ^and — ^make 
love to ladies — a sort of Satan like in Marie Corelli’s 
lovely book. You remember, Tamara, the one you 
were so funny about, laughing when you read it.” 

‘‘You mean ‘The Demon’ of Lermontoff, prob- 
ably, Millicent, don’t you?” Tamara said. “A 
friend of my mother’s translated it into English, 
and I have known it since I was a child. I think 
it must be very fine in the original,” and she 
looked at the Prince. 

In one moment his face became serious and 
sympathetic. 

“You know our great poet’s work, then?” he 
said, surprised. “One would not have thought it!” 

Then again Tamara’s anger rose. There was 
always the insinuation in his remarks, seemingly 
unconscious, and therefore the more irritating, 
that she was a commonplace fool. 

56 


HIS HOUR 


“Her name — the heroine’s — ^is the same as my 
own,” she said, gravely; but there was a challenge 
in her eyes. 

“Tamara!” he said. “Well — ^it could be — a. 
devil might come your way, but you would kneel 
and pray, and eat bonbons, and not listen to 
him.” 

“It would depend upon the devil,” she said. 

“Those who live the longest will see the most,” 
and the Prince put back his head and laughed 
with real enjoyment at his thoughts, just as he had 
done when the two goats had butted at one another 
in the road. 

Tamara felt her cheeks blaze with rage, but she 
would not enter the lists, in spite of the late chal- 
lenge in her eyes. 

Mr. Strong had vacated Millicent’s chair and 
taken his own. The party soon settled into their 
legitimate places, and Tamara again took up her 
book. 

“No, don’t read,” the Prince said. “You get 
angry at once with me when we talk, and the red 
comes into your cheeks, and I like it.” 

Exasperation was almost uncontrollable in 

57 


HIS HOUR 


Tamara. She remained silent, only the little ear 
next the Prince burned scarlet. 

‘‘Some day you will come to Russia,” he said, 
“and then you will learn many things.” 

“I have no desire to go there,” said Tamara, 
lying frankly, as it had always been her great wish, 
and indeed her godmother, who never forgot her, 
had often begged her to visit that northern clime; 
but Russia! — ^as well have suggested the moon at 
Underwood. 

“It would freeze you, perhaps, or burn you — 
who can tell?” the Prince said. “One would see 
when you got there. I have an old lady, a dear 
friend, with white hair and a mole on her cheek — 
someone who sees straight. She would be good 
for your education.” 

Tamara thought it would be wiser not to show 
any further annoyance, so she said lightly: 

“Yes, I am only sixteen, and have never left 
the schoolroom; it would be delightful to be taught 
how to live.” 

He turned and smiled at her. 

“You hardly look any more — ^twenty, perhaps, 
and — ^never kissed !” 


58 


HIS HOUR 


A memory rose up of a scorched neck, and sud- 
denly Tamara’s long eyelashes rested on her cheek. 

Then into his splendid eyes came a fierce, savage, 
passionate gleam, which she did not see, but dimly 
felt, and he said in a low voice a little thick: 

‘"And — as — ^yet — ^never really kissed.” 

“Milly,” said Tamara, as calmly as she could, 
“what time do we get into Brindisi to-morrow 
morning? And think of it, on Thursday night 
we shall be at home.” 

Home seemed so very safe! 

The Prince did not come in to luncheon, some- 
thing was the matter with his Arab horse, and he 
had gone to see to it just before — a concern on his 
face as of the news of illness to his nearest kin. 

Tamara was gay and charming, and laughed with 
Stephen Strong and the captain in quite an unusual 
way for her. They both thought her an adorable 
woman. Poor Tamara! and so she really was. 

About tea-time Prince Milaslavski turned up 
again. 

“He is all right now,” he said, sure that his 
listeners were in perfect sympathy with him. “It 
was those fools down there. I have made them 
« 59 


HIS HOUR 


suffer, I can say,’" and then he turned to Stephen 
Strong. “Among the steerage there is an Alex- 
andrian gipsy troupe. I have ordered them up to 
sing to us to-night, since Madame wished it,” and 
he turned upon Millicent an air of deep devotion. 

“Common ragged creatures, but one with some 
ankles and one with a voice. In any case, we 
must celebrate these ladies’ last night.” 

And thus the terrible present end to their acquain- 
tance fell about! 

Nothing could have been more charming than 
the Prince was until dinner-time, and indeed 
through that meal, only he made Stephen Strong 
change places with him, so that he might be next 
Mrs. Hardcastle, much to that lady’s delight. 

“He is really too fascinating,” she said, as she 
came into Tamara’s cabin to fetch her for the even- 
ing meal. “I hardly think Henry would like his 
devotion to me. What do you think, dear?” 

“I am sure he would be awfully jealous, Milly 
darling; you really must be careful,” Tamara said. 
And with a conscious air of complacent pleasantly 
tickled virtue Mrs. Hardcastle led the way to the 
saloon. 


60 


HIS HOUR 


It was not possible, Tamara thought, that any- 
thing so terribly unpleasant as the Prince’s having 
too much champagne at dinner could have ac- 
counted for his simply scandalous behavior after; 
and yet surely that would have been the kindest 
thing to say. But, no, it was not that. 

This was, in brief, the scene which was enacted 
on the upper deck: 

With the permission of the captain, the gipsy 
troupe were brought, and began their performance, 
tame enough at the commencement until the Prince 
gave orders for them to be supplied with unlimited 
champagne, and then the wildest dancing began. 
They writhed and gesticulated and undulated in a 
manner which made Millicent cling on to her chair, 
grow crimson in the face, and finally start to her 
feet. 

But the worst happened when the Prince rose and, 
taking a tambourine, began, with a weird shriek, to 
beat it wildly, his eyes ablaze and his lips apart. 

Then, seizing the chief dancer and banging it 
upon her head, he held his arm about her heaving 
breast, as she turned to him with a serpentine 
movement of voluptuous delight. 

61 


HIS HOUR 


In a second he had caught hold of her and had 
lifted and swung her far out over the dark blue 
waters, then, with a swirl to the side, held her 
suspended in the air above the open deck below. 

‘‘Ha, ha!’’ yelled the troupe, in frenzied pleasure, 
and, nimble as a cat, one rough dark man rushed 
down the ladder and caught the hanging woman 
in his arms. Then they all clapped and cheered 
and shrieked with joy, while the Prince, putting his 
hands in his pockets, pulled out heaps of gold and 
flung it among them. 

“Back to hell, rats!” he shouted, laughing. 
“See, you have frightened the ladies. You should 
all be killed!” 

For Tamara and Millicent had risen, and with 
stately steps had quitted the scene. 

It was all too terrible and too vulgarly melodra- 
matic, Tamara thought, especially that touching 
of the woman and that flinging of the gold, the 
latter caused by the same barbaric instinct which 
made him throw the silver in the Sheikh’s vil- 
lage by the moonlit Sphinx, only this was worse a 
thousandfold. 

The next morning the two ladies left the ship at 

62 


HIS HOUR 


Brindisi before either the Prince or Stephen Strong 
was awake. Both were silent upon the subject 
of the night before, until Millicent at last said when 
they were in the train : 

‘‘Tamara — ^you won’t tell Henry or your family, 
will you, dear? Because really, last night he was 
so fascinating — ^but that dancing! I am sure you 
feel, with me, we could have died of shame.” 


CHAPTER VI 


Tamara reached Underwood 
and saw a letter from her Russian 
godmother among the pile which 
awaited her, she felt it was the finger of fate, 
and when she read it and found it contained not 
only New Year’s wishes, but an invitation couched 
in affectionate and persuasive terms that she should 
visit St. Petersburg, she suddenly, and without 
consulting her family, decided she would go. 

‘‘There is something drawing me to Russia,” 
she said to herself. “One gets into the current of 
things. I felt it in the air. And why should I 
hesitate now I am free ? Why should I not accept, 
just because one Russian man has horrified me. It 
is, I suppose, a big city, and perhaps I shall never 
see him there.” 

So she announced her decision to the dum- 
founded household, and in less than a week took 
the Nord Express. 

“The Court, alas! is In mourning,” — ^her god- 

64 


HIS HOUR 


mother had written, — you will see no splendid 
Court balls, but I daresay we can divert you other- 
wise, Tamara, and I am so anxious to make the 
acquaintance of my godchild.” 

The morning after she left them Aunt Clara ex- 
pressed herself thus at breakfast: 

‘T see a great and most unwelcome change in 
dear Tamara since she returned from Egypt, I 
had hoped Millicent Hardcastle would be all that 
was steadying and well-balanced as a companion 
for her, but it seems this modern restlessness has 
got into her blood. I tremble to think what ideas 
she will bring from Russia. Almost savages 
they are there! — She may be sent to Siberia or 
something dreadful, and we may never see her 
again.” 

“Oh! come Aunt Clara!” Tom Underdown 
protested, as he buttered his toast. “I think you 
are a little behind the times. There is a Russian 
at Oxford with me and he is the decentest chap in 
the world. You speak as though they almost lived 
on raw fish!” 

“ My dear Tom, ” said Miss Underdown, severely. 
“I was reading only yesterday, in the ‘Christian 
65 


HIS HOUR 


Clarion/ how one of their Emperors cut off every- 
one’s head. Dreadful customs they have, it seems; 
and one of their Empresses — Catherine, I think 
her name was. Well, dear, it is too shocking to 
speak of — ^and most people were sent to the mines ! ” 

"‘Oh! hang it all. Aunt Clara, you can’t have 
looked at the date! You can hunt up just those 
jolly kind of stories about our Henry VIII. if you 
want to, you know, and our Elizabeth wasn’t the 
saint they made out. And as for Siberia, I am 
going there myself some day, on the Trans-Siberian 
Railway. Tamara will be all right. I wish to 
heavens she had taken me with her. We have got 
dry rot in this house, that is what is the matter 
with us!” 

“Tom!” almost gasped Miss Underdown. “Your 
manners are extremely displeasing, and the tone 
of your remarks is far from what one could wish!” 

Meanwhile Tamara was speeding on her way to 
the North, her interest and excitement in her jour- 
ney deepening with each mile. 

The snow and the vast forests impressed her 
from the train windows. Every smallest shade 
made its effect upon her brain. Tamara was sen- 
66 


HIS HOUR 


sitive to all form and color. She was a person who 
apprehended things, and from the habit cJ keeping 
all her observations to herself perhaps the faculty 
of perception had grown the keener. 

The silence seemed to be the first thing she 
remarked on reaching the frontier. The porters 
were so grave and quiet, with their bearded kindly 
faces, many of them like the saints and Biblical 
characters in Sunday-school picture books at home. 

And finally she arrived at St. Petersburg, and 
found her godmother waiting for her on the plat- 
form. They recognized each other immediately. 
Tamara had several photographs of the Princess 
Ardacheff. 

‘‘Welcome, ma filleule/^ that lady cried, while 
she shook her hand. “After all these years I can 
have you in my house. 

They said all sorts of mutually agreeable things 
on their way thither, and they looked at each other 
shyly. 

“She is not beautiful,’’ ran the Princess’ com- 
ments. “Though she has a superb air of breeding 
— ^that is from her poor mother — ^but her eyes are 
her father’s eyes. She is very sweet, and what a 
67 


HIS HOUR 


lovely skin — yes, and eyelashes — ^and probably a 
figure when one can see beneath the furs — ^tall and 
very slender in any case. Yes, I am far from dis- 
appointed — ^far. ” 

And Tamara thought: 

‘‘My godmother is a splendid looking lady! I 
like her bright brown eyes and that white hair; and 
what a queer black mole upon her left cheek, like 
an early eighteenth-century beauty spot. Where 
have I heard lately of someone with a mole ? 

“You fortunately see our city with a fresh mantle 
of snow, Tamara,” the Princess said, glancing 
from the automobile window as they sped along. 
“It is not, alas! always so white as this.” 

It appeared wonderful to Tamara — so quite 
unlike anything she had imagined. The tiny 
sleighs seemingly too ridiculously small for the 
enormously padded coachman on the boxes — the 
good horses with their sweeping tails — the unusual 
harness. And, above all, again the silence caused 
by the snow. 

Her first remark was almost a childish one of 
glee and appreciation, and then she stopped short. 
What would her godmother think of such an out- 
68 


HIS HOUR 


burst! She must return to the contained self- 
repression of the time before her visit to the Sphinx 
— surely in this strange land! 

The Princess ArdacheflF’s frank face was illu- 
minated with a smile. 

‘‘She is extremely young,” she thought, “in spite 
of her widowhood, but I like her, and I know we 
shall be friends. ” 

Just then they arrived at her house in the Ser- 
guiefskaia. It had not appeared to Tamara that 
they were approaching any particularly fashionable 
quarter. A fine habitation seemed the neighbor 
of quite a humble one, and here there was even a 
shop a few doors down, and except for the very tall 
windows there was nothing exceptionally imposing 
on the outside. But when they entered the first 
hall and the gaily-liveried suisse and two footmen 
had removed their furs, and the Princess’ snow 
boots, then Tamara perceived she was indeed in a 
glorious home. 

Princess Ardacheff’s house was, and is, perhaps 
the most stately in all Petersburg. 

As they ascended the enormous staircase dividing 
on the first landing, and reaching the surrounding 

69 


HIS HOUR 


galleries above in two sweeps, a grave major-domo 
and more footmen met them, and opened wide the 
doors of a lofty room. It was full of fine pictures 
and objets d’art, and though the furniture dated 
from the time of Alexander II., and even a little 
earlier — ^when a flood of frightful taste pervaded 
all Europe — still the stuffs and the colors were 
beautiful and rich, and time had softened their 
crudity into a harmonious whole. 

Be the decorations of a house what they will, it 
is the mistress of it who gives the rooms their soul. 
If hers is vulgar, so will the rooms be, even though 
Monsieur Nelson himself has but just designed 
them in purest Louis XVI. But the worst of all 
are those which look as though their owner con- 
stantly attended bazaars, and brought the super- 
fluous horrors she secured there back with her. 
Then there are vapid rooms, and anaemic rooms, 
and fiddly, and messy rooms, and there are 
monuments of wealth with no individuality 
at all. 

Tamara felt all these nuances directly, and she 
knew that here dwelt a woman of natural refine- 
ment and a broad outlook. 

70 


HIS HOUR 


She sank into an old-fashioned sofa, covered 
with silk a quarter of an inch thick, and the atmos- 
phere seemed to breathe life and completeness. 

Tea and quantities of different little bonnes 
bouches awaited them. But if there was a samovar 
she did not recognize it as such; in fact, she had 
seen nothing which many writers describe as 
“Russian.” 

The Princess talked on in a fashion of perfect 
simplicity and directness. She told her that her 
friends would all welcome her and be glad that an 
Englishwoman should really see their country, and 
find it was not at all the grotesque place which 
fancy painted it. 

“We are so far away that you do not even 
imagine us,” she said. “You English have read 
that there was an Ivan the Terrible and a Peter the 
Great, who crushed through your Evelyn’s hedges, 
and was a giant of seven foot high! Many of you 
believe wolves prowl in the streets at night, and 
that among the highest society Nihilists stalk, 
disguised as heaven knows what! While the sud- 
den disappearance of a member of any great or 
small family can be accounted for by a nocturnal 
71 


HIS HOUR 


visit of police, and a transportation in chains to 
Siberian mines! Is it not so, Tamara?’’ 

Tamara laughed. ‘‘Yes, indeed,” she said. 
“I am sure that is what Aunt Clara thinks 
now! Are we not a ridiculously insular people, 
Marraine?” 

She said the last word timidly and put out her 
hand. “May I call you Marraine, Princess?” 
she asked. “I never knew my mother, and it 
sounds nice.” 

“Indeed, yes!” the Princess said, and she rose 
and kissed Tamara. “Your mother was very 
dear to me, long ago, before you were born, we spent 
a wild season together of youth and happiness. 
You shall take the place of my child Tamara, if 
she had lived.” 

Before they had finished drinking their tea, other 
guests came in — a tall old General in a beautiful 
uniform, and two ladies, one young and the other 
old. They all spoke English perfectly, and were 
so agreeable and sans fagon, Tamara’s first impres- 
sion was distinctly good. 

Presently she heard the elder lady say to her 
godmother: 


72 


HIS HOUR 


‘‘Have you seen Gritzko since his return, Vera? 
One hears he has a wild fit on and is at Milasldv 
with the rest of the words were almost whis- 

pered. Tamara found herself unpleasantly on the 
alert — ^how ridiculous, though, she thought — Gritz- 
ko! — ^there might be a dozen Gritzkos in Peters- 
burg. 

“No, he returns to-night,” Princess Arddcheff 
said; “but I never listen to these tales, and as no 
matter what he does we all forgive him, and let 
him fly back into our good graces as soon as he 
purses up that handsome mouth of his — ^it is 
superfluous to make critiques upon his conduct — 
it seems to me!” 

The lady appeared to agree to this, for she 
laughed, and they talked of other things, and soon 
all left. 

And when they were gone — “To-night I have 
one or two of my nicest friends dining,” the Prin- 
cess said, “whom I wish you to know, so I thought 
if you rested now you would not be too tired for a 
little society,” and she carried Tamara off to her 
warm comfortable bedroom, an immense apart- 
ment in gorgeous Empire taste, and here was a 
73 


HIS HOUR 


great bunch of roses to greet her, and her maid 
could be seen unpacking in the anti-chamber 
beyond. 

The company, ten or twelve of them, were all 
assembled when Tamara reached one of the great 
salons, which opened from the galleries surround- 
ing the marble hall. She came in — a slender wil- 
lowy creature, with a gentle smile of contrition — • 
was she late? 

And then the presentations took place. What 
struck her first was that dark or fair, fat-faced or 
thin, high foreheads or low, all the ladies wore 
coiffees exactly the same — the hair brushed up from 
the forehead and tightly ondules. It gave a look of 
universal distinction, but In some cases was not 
very becoming. They were beautifully dressed in 
mourning, and no one seemed to have much of a 
complexion, from an English point of view, but 
before the end of the evening Tamara felt she had 
never met women with such charm. Surely no 
other country could produce the same types, per- 
fectly simple in manner — ^perfectly at ease. Ex- 
tremely highly educated, with a wide range of 
subjects, and a knowledge of European literature 

74 


HIS HOUR 


which must be unsurpassed. Afterwards when she 
knew them better she realized that here was one 
place left in Europe where there were no parvenues 
and no snobs — or if there were any, they were 
beautifully concealed. Such absolute simplicity 
and charm can only stay in a society where no one 
is trying ‘‘to arrive/’ all being there naturally by 
birth. There could be no room for the metier 
adopted by several impecunious English ladies of 
title — ^that of foisting anyone, however unsuitable, 
upon society and their friends for a well-gilded 
consideration. 

In Russia, at least, it is the round peg in the 
round hole. No square peg would have a chance 
of admission. Thus there are the ease and ele- 
gance of one large and interesting family. 

It seemed to Tamara that each one was endowed 
with natural fascination. They made no “frais” 
for her. There were no compliments or gushing 
welcomes. They were just casual and delightful 
and made her feel at home and happy with them 
all. 

They took “Zacouska” in an ante-room. Such 
quantities of strange dishes ! There seemed enough 

6 75 


HIS HOUR 


for a whole meal, and Tamara wondered how it 
would be possible to eat anything further! At 
dinner she sat between a tall old Prince and a 
diplomat. The uniforms pleased her and the 
glorious pearls of the ladies. Such pearls — ^worth 
a king’s ransom! 

Then she was interested to see the many differ- 
ent sorts of wine, and the extreme richness of the 
food, and finally the shortness of the meal. 

The pretty custom of the men kissing the hostess’ 
hand as they all left the dining-room together, 
she found delightful. 

They were drinking coffee in the blue salon, and 
most of the party had retired to the bridge tables 
laid out, and Tamara, who played too badly, sat by 
the fire with her godmother and another lady, when 
suddenly the door opened and, with an air of com- 
plete insouciance and assurance. Prince Milas- 
lavski came in. 

‘T want some coffee, Tantine,” he said, kissing 
the Princess’ hand, while he nodded to everyone 
else. ‘T was passing and so came in to get it.” 

“Gritzko — ^back again!” the whole company 
cried, and the Princess, beaming upon him fond 

76 


HIS HOUR 


smiles, gave him the coffee, while she murmured 
her glad welcome. 

The society now began to chaff him as to his 
doings, which he took with the utmost sang froid, 

“That old cat of a Marianne Mariuski sets about 
as usual one of her stories. I am having an orgie 
at Milaslav, and this time with a seraglio of Egyp- 
tian houris — ^the truth being I only brought back 
by the merest chance one small troupe of Alexan- 
drian dancers, and two performing bears. They 
made us laugh for three days. Serge, Sasha, and 
the rest!” 

“Gritzko, will you never learn wisdom,” said 
one lady, the Princess Shebanoff, plaintively, 
while the others all laughed. “Were they pretty, 
and what were they like ?” they asked. 

“The bears? — little angels, especially Fatima, — 
and with the manners of Princesses,” and he bowed 
to an old lady who was surveying him severely 
through her pince-nez, while she held her cards 
awry. “Which reminds me we are failing in ours, 
Tantine, you have not presented me to the English 
lady, who is, I perceive, a stranger.” 

During all this Tamara had sat cold and silent. 

77 


HIS HOUR 


She was angry with herself that this man’s entrance 
should cause her such emotion — or rather com- 
motion and sensation. Why should he make her 
feel nervous and stupid, unsure of herself, and 
uncertain what to do. Invariably he placed her 
at some disadvantage, and left the settling of their 
relations to himself. Whereas all such regulations 
ought to have been in her hands. Now she was 
without choice again, she could only bow stiffly as 
her godmother said his name and her name, and 
Prince Milaslavski took a chair by her side and 
began making politenesses as though he were 
really a stranger. 

Had she just arrived ? Did she find Russia very 
cold ? Was she going to stay long ? etc., etc. 

To all of which Tamara answered in mono- 
syllables, while two bright spots of rose color 
burned in her cheeks. 

The Prince was astonishingly good looking in his 
Cossack’s uniform, and his eyes had a laugh in 
them, but a shadow round as if bed had not seen 
him for several nights. 

His whole manner to Tamara was different 
from any shade it had formerly worn. It was as 

78 


HIS HOUR 


if a courtly Russian were welcoming an honored 
guest in his aunt’s house. 

He did not mock or tease, or announce startling 
truths; he was pleasant and ordinary and serene. 

He and the Princess Ardacheff were no real 
blood relations; the first wife of her late husband 
had been his mother’s sister, but the tradition of 
aunt had gone on in the family and the Princess 
loved him almost as a son. He had always called 
her “Tantine” as though she had been his real 
aunt. 

‘‘What did you think of Gritzko MilasMvski, 
Tamara ?” she asked, when all the guests were gone, 
and the two had retired to Tamara’s room. “He 
is one of the dearest characters when you know him 
— but a terrible tease.” 

“ He seemed very pleasant,” Tamara said blankly, 
while she picked up a book. Even to speak of 
him caused her unease. 

“He is not at all the type of an ordinary Rus- 
sian,” the Princess continued. “He has traveled 
so much, he is so fin there is almost a French touch 
in him. I am afraid you will find our young men 
rather dull as a rule. They are very hard worked 
79 


HIS HOUR 


at their military duties, and have not much time 
for les dames du monde,^^ 

‘‘No?” said Tamara. “Well, the women seem 
to make up for it. I have never met so many clev«r 
delightful ones.” 

“It is our education,” the Princess said. “You 
see from babyhood we learn many languages, and 
thus the literatures of countries are open to us 
before we begin to analyze anything, and English 
especially we know well, because in that language 
there are so many books for young girls.” 

“In England,” said Tamara, “what may be 
given to young girls seems to rule everything, no 
one is allowed a thought for herself, every idea 
almost is brought down to that dead level — one 
rebels after a while — ^but tell me, Marraine, if I 
may ask, what makes them all so tired and gray 
looking, the people I have seen to-night I mean. 
Do they sit up very late at parties, or what is it ?” 

“In the season, yes, but it is not that, it is our 
climate and our hot closed-up rooms, and the 
impossibility of taking proper exercise. In the 
summer you will not know them for the same 
faces.” 


80 


HIS HOUR 


And then she kissed her goddaughter good-night, 
but just at the door she paused. ‘‘You were not 
shocked about the Alexandrian dancers, I hope, 
child?” she said. “If one knew the truth, they 
were poor people who were starving, probably, 
and Gritzko paid them money and helped them 
out of the kindness of his heart — ^those are the 
sort of things he generally does I find when I 
investigate, so I never pay attention to what he 
says.” 

Tamara, left to herself, gazed into the glowing 
embers of her wood fire. 

“I wonder — ^I wonder,” she said. But what 
she wondered she hardly dared admit — even to 
herself. 


CHAPTER VII 


HE next day was the last of the Russian 
^ old year — the 13th of January new style 

— ^and when Tamara appeared about ten 
o’clock in her godmother’s own sitting-room, a 
charming apartment full of the most interesting 
miniatures and bibelots collected by the great 
Ardacheff, friend of Catherine II., she found the 
Princess already busy at her writing table. 

“Good-morning, my child,” she said. “You 
behold me up and working at a time when most of 
my countrywomen are not yet in their baths. We 
keep late hours here in the winter, while it is dark 
and cold. You will get quite accustomed to going 
to bed at two and rising at ten; but to-night, if it 
pleases you to fall in with what is on the tapis for 
you, I fear it will be even four in the morning before 
you sleep. Prince Milaslavski has telephoned that 
he gives a party at his house on the Foutonka, to 
dine first and then go on to a cafd to hear the Bohe- 
mians sing. It is a peculiarity of the place these 
82 


HIS HOUR 


Bohemians — we shall drink in the New Year and 
then go. It will not bore you. No ? Then it is 
decided/’ and she pressed a lovely little Faberger 
enamel bell which lay on the table near, and one 
of the innumerable servants, who seemed to be 
always waiting in the galleries, appeared. She 
spoke to him in Russian, and then took up the 
telephone by her side, and presently was in com- 
munication with the person she had called. 

‘Tt is thou, Gritzko? Awake? Of course she 
is awake, and here in the room. Yes, it is arranged 
— ^we dine — ^not until nine o’clock? — ^you cannot 
be in before. Bon. Now promise you will be 
good. — Indeed, yes. — Of course any English lady 
would be shocked at you — So! — ^I tell you she is in 
the room — ^pray be more discreet,” and she smiled 
at Tamara, and then continued her conversation. 
‘‘No, I will not talk in Russian, it is very rude. — ^If 
you a»e not completely sage at dinner we shall 
not go on. — ^I am serious! Well, good-bye,” — 
and with a laugh the Princess put the receiver 
down. 

“He says nothing would shock you — ^he is sure 
you understand the world! Well, we must amuse 
83 


HIS HOUR 


ourselves, and try and restrain him if he grows too 
wild.” 

“He is often wild, then ?” Tamara said. 

The Princess rose and stood by the window 
looking out on the thickly falling snow. 

“I am afraid — a little — yes, though never in 
the wrong situation; above all things Gritzko is a 
gentleman; but sometimes I wish he would take 
life less as a game. One cannot help speculating 
how it can end.” 

“Has he no family.?^” Tamara asked. 

“No, everyone is dead. His mother worshipped 
him, but she died when he was scarcely eighteen, 
and his father before that. His mother is his 
adored memory. In all the mad scenes which he 
and his companions, I am afraid, have enacted in 
the Fontonka house, there is one set of rooms no 
one has dared to enter — ^her rooms — and he keeps 
flowers there, and an ever-burning lamp. Th«re is 
a strange touch of sentiment and melancholy in 
Gritzko, and of religion too. Sometimes I think 
he is unhappy, and then he goes off to his castle in 
the Caucasus or to Milaslav, and no one sees him 
for weeks. Last year we hoped he would marry 

84 


HIS HOUR 


a charming Polish girl — ^he quite paid her attention 
for several nights; but he said she laughed one day 
when he felt sad, and answered seriously when he 
was gay, and made crunching noises with her teeth 
when she eat biscuits! — ^and her mother was fat and 
she might grow so too ! And for these serious reasons 
he could not face her at breakfast for the rest of 
his life! Thus that came to an end. No one 
has any influence upon him. I have given up 
trying. One must accept him as he is, or leave him 
alone — ^he will go his own way.” 

Tamara had ceased flghting with herself about 
the interest she took in conversations relating to 
the Prince. She could not restrain her desire to 
hear of him, but she explained it now by telling 
herself he was a rather lurid and unusual foreign 
character, which must naturally be an interesting 
study for a stranger. 

“It was an escape for the girl at least, perhaps,” 
she said, when the Princess paused. 

“Of that I am not sure; he is so tender to chil- 
dren and animals, and his soul is full of generosity 
and poetry — ^and justice too. Poor Gritzko,” 
and the Princess sighed. 

85 


HIS HOUR 


Then Tamara remembered their conversation 
during their night ride from the Sphinx, and she 
felt again the humiliating certainty of how com- 
monplace he must have found her. 

Presently the Princess took her to see the house. 
Every room filled with relics of the grand owners 
who had gone before. There were portraits of 
Peter the Great, and the splendid Catherine, in 
almost every room. 

“An Empress so much misjudged in your coun- 
try, Tamara,’’ her godmother said. “She had the 
soul and the necessities of a man, but she was 
truly great.” 

Tamara gazed up at the proud dehonnaire face, 
and she thought how at home they would think 
of the most unconventional part of her character, 
to the obliteration of all other aspects, and each 
moment she was realizing how ridiculous and 
narrow was the view from the standpoint from 
which she had been made to look at life. 

For luncheon quite a number of guests arrived, 
the Princess, she found afterward, was hardly 
ever alone. 

“I don’t care to go out, Tamara, as a rule, to 

86 


HIS HOUR 


dejeuner/’ she said, “but I love my house to be 
filled with young people and mirth.” 

The names were very difficult for Tamara to 
catch, especially as they all called each other by 
their ^etits noms — all having been friends since 
babyhood, if not, as often was the case, related 
by ties of blood; but at last she began to know that 
“Olga” was the Countess Gleboff, and “Sonia,” 
the Princess Solentzeff-Zasiekin — ^both young, 
under thirty, and both attractive and quite sans 
gene. 

“Olga” was little and plump, with an oval 
face and rather prominent eyes, but with a way of 
saying things which enchanted Tamara’s ear. 
Her manner was casualness itself, and had a won- 
derful charm; and another thing struck her now 
that she saw them in daylight, not a single woman 
present — ^and there were six or seven at least — 
had even the slightest powder on her face. They 
were as nature made them, not the faintest aid 
from art in anyway. “They cannot be at all 
coquette like the French,” she thought, “or even 
like us in England, or they could not all do their 
hair like that whether it suits them or no! But 
87 


HIS HOUR 


what charm they have — ^much more than we, or 
the French, or any one I know/’ 

They were all so amusing and gay at lunch and 
talked of teeny scandals with a whimsical humor 
at themselves for being so small, which was delight- 
ful, and no one said anything spiteful or mean. 
Quantities of pleasant things were planned, and 
Tamara found her days arranged for a week 
ahead. 

That night, as they drove to Prince Milaslavski’s 
dinner, an annoying sense of excitement possessed 
Tamara. She refused to ask herself why. Curi- 
osity to see the house of this strange man — most 
likely — ^in any case, emotion enough to make her 
eyes bright. 

It was one of the oldest houses in Petersburg, 
built in the time of Catherine, about 1768, and 
although in a highly florid rococo style of decora- 
tion, as though something gorgeous and barbaric 
had amalgamated with the Louis XV., still it had 
escaped the terrible wave of 1850 vandalism, and 
stood, except for a few Empire rooms, a monument 
of its time. 

Everything about it interested Tamara. The 

88 


HIS HOUR 


strange Cossack servants in the hall; the splendid 
staircase of stone and marble, and then finally 
they reached the salons above. 

“One can see no woman lives here,’’ she thought, 
though the one they entered was comfortable 
enough. Huge English leather armchairs elbowed 
some massively gilt seats of the time of Nicholas I., 
and an ugly English high fender with its padded 
seat, surrounded the blazing log fire. 

The guests were all assembled, but host, there 
was not! 

“What an impertinence to keep them waiting 
like this,” Tamara thought! However, no one 
seemed to mind but herself, and they all stood 
laughing or sitting on the fender in the best of 
spirits. 

“I will bet you,” said Olga Gleboff, in her 
attractive voice, “that Gritzko comes in with no 
apology, and that we shall none of us be able to 
drag from him where he has been!” 

As she spoke he entered the room. 

“Ah! you are all very early,” he said, shaking 
their hands in frank welcome. “So good of you, 
dear friends. Perhaps I am a little late, you will 
89 


HIS HOUR 


forgive me, I know; and now for Zacouska, a 
wolf is tearing at my vitals, I feel, and yours too. 
It is nine o’clock!’’ 

Then the dining-room doors at the side opened 
and they all went in en hander and gathered round 
the high table, where they began to eat like hun- 
gry natural people, selecting the dishes they wanted. 
Some of the men taking immense spoonfuls of 
caviare, and spreading them on bread, like children 
with jam. All were so joyous and so perfectly 
without ceremony. Nothing could be more agree- 
able than this society, Tamara thought. 

Some of the men were elderly, and a number 
the husbands of the various ladies; there were a 
few young officers and several diplomats from the 
Embassies, too. But young or old, all were gay 
and ready to enjoy life. 

“You must taste some vodka, Madame,” Prince 
Milasldvski said, pouring a small glass at Tamara’s 
side. “You will not like it, but it is Russian, and 
you must learn. See I take some, too, and drink 
your health!” 

Tamara bowed and sipped the stuff, which she 
found very nasty, with a whiff of ether in it. And 
90 


HIS HOUR 


then they all trouped to the large table in this huge 
dining-hall. 

Tamara sat on her host’s right hand, and Prin- 
cess Sonia on his left. 

To-night his coat was brown and the underdress 
black, it was quite as becoming as the others she 
had seen him in, with the strange belt and gold 
and silver trimmings and the Eastern hang of it 
all, and his great dark gray-blue eyes blazed at 
Tamara now and then with a challenge in them 
she could hardly withstand. 

‘‘Now tell us, Gritzko, what did you do in 
Egypt this year?” Princess Sonia said. “It is the 
first time that no histories of your ways have come 
to our ears — ^were you ill ? — or bored ? We feared 
you were dead.” 

“On the contrary, I was greatly alive,” he an- 
swered gravely. “I was studying mummies and 
falling in love with the Sphinx. And just at the end 
I had a most interesting kind of experience; I came 
upon what looked like a woman, but turned out 
to be a mummy and later froze into a block of ice!” 

“Gritzko!” they called in chorus. “Can any- 
one invent such impossible stories as you!” 

91 


7 


HIS HOUR 


‘‘I assure you I am speaking the truth. Is it 
not so, Madame?’’ And he looked at Tamara 
and smiled with fleeting merry mockery in his eyes. 
“See,” and he again turned to his guests, “Madame 
has been in Egypt she tells me, and should be able 
to vouch for my truth.” 

Tamara pulled herself together. 

“I think the Sphinx must have cast a spell 
over you. Prince,” she said, “so that you could not 
distinguish the real from the false. I saw no 
women who were mummies and then turned into 
ice!” 

Some one distracted Princess Sonia’s attention 
for a moment, and the Prince whispered, “ One can 
melt ice!” 

“To find a mummy?” Tamara asked with 
grave innocence. “That would be the inverse 
rotation.” 

“And lastly a woman — ^in one’s arms,” the 
Prince said. 

Tamara turned to her neighbor and became 
engrossed in his conversation for the rest of the 
repast. 

All the women, and nearly all the men, spoke 

92 


HIS HOUR 


English perfectly, and their good manners were 
such that even this large party talked in the strange 
guest’s language among themselves. 

“One must converse now as long as one can,” 
her neighbor told her, “because the moment we 
have had coffee everyone will play bridge, and no 
further sense will be got out of them. We are a 
little behind the rest of the world always in Peters- 
burg, and while in England and Paris this game 
has had its day, here we are still in its claws to a 
point of madness, as Madame will see.” 

And thus it fell about. 

Prince Milaslavski gave Tamara his arm and 
they found coffee awaiting them in the salon when 
they returned there, and at once the rubbers were 
made up. And with faces of grave pre-occupation 
this lately merry company sat down to their game, 
leaving only the Prince and one lady and Tamara 
unprovided for. 

“Yes, I can play,” she had said, when she was 
asked, “but it bores me so, and I do it so badly; 
may I not watch you instead 

The lady who made the third had not these 
ideas, and she sat down near a table ready to cut 
93 


HIS HOUR 


in. Thus the host and his English guest were left 
practically alone. 

“I did not mean you to play,” he said, ‘T knew 
you couldn’t — I arranged it like this.” 

“Why did you know I couldn’t?” Tamara 
asked. ‘T am too stupid perhaps you think!” 

“Yes — ^too stupid and — ^too sweeL” 

“I am neither stupid — nor sweet!” and her 
eyes flashed. 

“Probably not, but you seem so to me. — ^Now 
don’t get angry at once, it makes our acquaintance 
so fatiguing, I have each time to be presented over 
again.” 

Then Tamara laughed. 

“It really is all very funny,” she said. 

“And how is the estimable Mrs. Hardcastle?” 
he asked, when he had laughed too — ^his joyous 
laugh. “This is a safe subject and we can sit 
on the fender without your wanting to push me 
into the fire over it.” 

“I am not at all sure of that,” answered Tamara. 
She could not resist his charm, she could not con- 
tinue quarrelling with him; somehow it seemed too 
difficult here in his own house, so she smiled as 
94 


HIS HOUR 


she went on. “If you laugh at my Millicent, I 
shall get very angry indeed.” 

“Laugh at your Millicent! The idea is miles 
from my brain — did not I tell you when I could 
find a wife like that I would marry — ^what more 
can I say!” and the Prince looked at her with su- 
preme gravity. “Did she tell ‘Henry’ that a devil 
of a Russian bear had got drunk and flung a gipsy 
into the sea?” 

“Possibly. Why were you so — ^horrible that 
night ?” 

“Was I horrible?” 

“Probably not, but you seemed so to me,” 
Tamara quoted his late words. 

“I seem horrible — ^and you seem sweet.” 

“Surely the stupid comes in too!” 

“Undoubtedly, but Russia will cure that, you 
will not go away for a long time.” 

“In less than four weeks.” 

“We shall see,” and the Prince got up and lit 
another cigarette. “You do not smoke either? 
What a little good prude!” 

“I am not a prude!” Tamara’s ire rose again. 
“I have tried often with my brother Tom, and it 
95 


HIS HOUR 


always makes me sick. I would be a fool, not a 
prude, to go on, would not I 

‘"I am not forcing you to smoke. I like your 
pretty teeth best as they are!” 

Rebellion shook Tamara. It was his attitude 
toward her — one of supreme unconcerned com- 
mand — ^as though he had a perfect right to take 
his pleasure out of her conversation, and play upon 
her emotions, according to his mood. She could 
have boxed his ears. 

“ How long ago is it since we danced in Egypt — 
a fortnight, or more? You move well, but you 
don’t know anything about dancing,” he went on. 
“Dancing is either a ridiculous jumping about 
of fools, who have no more understanding of its 
meaning than a parcel of marionettes. Or it is 
an expression of some sort of emotion. The Greeks 
understood that in their Orchiesis, each feeling 
had its corresponding movement. For me it means 
a number of things. When a woman is slender 
and pliant and smooth of step, and if she pleases 
me otherwise, then it is not waste of time! — ^To- 
night I shall probably get drunk again,” and he 
flicked the ash off his cigarette with his little 


96 


HIS HOUR 


finger; and even though Tamara was again annoyed 
with him, she could not help noticing that his hands 
were fine and strong. 

But you were not drunk on the ship — ^you could 
not even plead that,” she said, almost shocked at 
herself for speaking of anything so horrible. 

‘Tt is the same thing. I feel a mad super- 
charge of life — ^an intoxication of the senses, per- 
haps. It has only one advantage over the cham- 
pagne result. I am steady on my feet, and my 
voice is not thick!” 

Tamara did not speak. 

‘T wonder what this music we shall hear will 
say to you. Will it make the milk and water you 
call blood in your veins race? — ^it will amuse me 
to see.” 

‘T am not made for your amusement. Prince. 
How dare you always treat me as you do ?” And 
Tamara drew herself up haughtily. ‘‘And if my 
veins contain milk and water, it is at least my 
own.” 

“You dared me once before, Madame,” he 
said, smiling provokingly. “Do you think it is 
quite wise of you to try it again ?” 

97 


HIS HOUR 


“I do not care if it is wise or no. I hate you!” 
almost hissed poor Tamara. 

Then his eyes blazed, as she had never seen 
them yet. He moved nearer to her, and spoke in 
a low concentrated voice. 

“It is a challenge. Good. Now listen to what 
I say. In a little short time you shall love me. 
That haughty little head shall lie here on my 
breast without a struggle, and I shall kiss your 
lips until you cannot breathe.” 

For the second time in her life Tamara went 
dead white — ^he saw her pale even to her lips. 
And since the moment was not yet, and since his 
mood was not now to make her suffer, he bent 
over with contrition and asked her to forgive him 
in a tender voice. 

“ Madame — ^I am only joking — ^but I am a brute,” 
he said. 

Tamara rose and walked to the bridge tables, 
furious with herself that he could have seen his 
power over her, even though it were only to cause 
rage. 

He came up behind her and sat down and began 
to talk nicely again — ^about the sights to be seen 
98 


HIS HOUR 


in the capital, and the interesting museums and col- 
lections of pictures and arms. Nothing could be 
more correct than his manner, and the bridge 
players who were within earshot smiled, while 
Countess Olga thought. 

“Either Gritzko has just been making love to 
the Englishwoman, or he is immensely bored — 
The latter from his face.’’ 


CHAPTER VIII 


company stopped their game about 
» M ^ quarter to twelve, and tables and 
champagne and glasses were brought in, 
and hand in hand they made a circle and drank 
in the New Year. 

Tamara took care to stand by Princess Arda- 
cheff, but her host looked at her as he raised his 
glass. Then they descended to the hall, and were 
wrapped in their furs again to go to the cafe where 
the Bohemians were to sing. 

Tamara and the Princess were already in the 
latter’s coupe when Prince Milaslavski called out: 
‘‘Tantine — ! take me too — ^I am slim and can sit 
between you, and I want to arrive soon, I have 
sent my motor on with Serge and Valonne.” 

And without waiting he got in. 

They had to sit very close, and Tamara became 
incensed with herself, because in spite of all her 
late rage with the Prince, she experienced a sensa- 
100 


HIS HOUR 


tion which was disturbing and unknown. The 
magnetic personality of the man was so strong. 
He bent and whispered something to the Princess, 
and then as though sharing a secret, he leaned the 
other way, and whispered to Tamara, too. The 
words were nothing, only some ordinary nonsense, 
of which she took no heed. But as he spoke his 
lips touched her ear. A wild thrill ran through 
her, she almost trembled, so violent was the emo- 
tion the little seemingly accidental caress caused. 
A feeling she had never realized in the whole of 
her life before. Why did he tease her so. Why 
did he always behave in this maddening manner! 
and choose moments when she was defenseless and 
could make no move. Of one thing she was certain, 
if she should stay on in Russia she must come to 
some understanding with him if possible, and 
prevent any more of these ways — ^absolutely insult- 
ing to her self-respect. 

So she shrunk back in her corner and gave no 
reply. 

“Are you angry with me?” he whispered. “It 
was the shaking of the automobile which caused 
me to come too near you. Forgive me, I will try 
101 


HIS HOUR 


not to sin again,” — ^but as he spoke he repeated his 
offense ! 

Tamara clasped her hands together, tightly, and 
answered in the coldest voice — 

“I did not notice anything. Prince, it must be a 
guilty conscience which causes you to apologize.” 

‘‘In that case then all is well!” and he laughed 
softly. 

The Princess now joined in the conversation. 

“ Gritzko, you must tell Mrs. Loraine how these 
gipsies are, and what she will hear — she will think 
it otherwise so strange.” 

He turned to Tamara at once. 

“They are a queer people who dwell in a clan. 
They sing like the fiend — one hates it or loves it, 
but it gets on the nerves, and if a man should fancy 
one of them, he must pay the chief, not the girl. 
Then they are faithful and money won’t tempt 
them away. But if the man makes them jealous, 
they run a knife into his back.” 

“It sounds exciting at all events,” Tamara said. 

“It is an acquired taste, and if you have a par- 
ticularly sensitive ear the music will make you feel 
inclined to scream. It drives me mad.” 


102 


HIS HOUR 


“Gritzko,” the Princess whispered to him. 
‘‘You promise to be sage^ dear boy, do you not? 
Sometimes you alarm me when you go too far.” 

“Tantine!” and he kissed her hand. “Your 
words are law!” 

“Alas! if that were only true,” she said with a 
sigh. 

“To-night all shall be suited to the eleven 
thousand virgins!” and he laughed. “Or shall I 
say suited to an English grande dame — ^which is the 
same!” 

They had crossed the Neva by now, and presently 
arrived at a building with a gloomy looking door, 
and so to a dingy hall, in which a few waiters were 
scurrying about. They seemed to go through end- 
less shabby passages, like those of a lunatic asylum, 
and finally arrived at a large and empty room — 
empty so far as people were concerned — ^for at the 
end there were sofas and a long narrow table, and 
a few smaller ones with chairs. 

The tables were already laid, with dishes of raw 
ham and salted almonds and various bonnes bouches^ 
while brilliant candelabra shone amidst numerous 
bottles of champagne. 


103 


HIS HOUR 


The company seemed to have forgotten the 
gloom that playing bridge had brought over them, 
and were as gay again as one could wish, while 
divesting themselves of their furs and snow-boots. 

And soon Tamara found hersdf seated on the 
middle sofa behind the long table. Count Gleboff 
on her right, and the French Secretary, Count 
Valonne, at her left, while beyond him was Princess 
Sonia, and near by all the rest. 

Their host stood up in front, a brimming glass 
in his hand. 

Then there filed in about twenty-five of the most 
unattractive animal-looking females, dressed in 
ordinary hideous clothes, who all took their seats 
on a row of chairs at the farther end. They wore 
no national costume nor anything to attract the 
eye, but were simply garbed as concierges or shop- 
girls might have been; and some were old, gray- 
haired women, and one had even a swollen face tied 
up in a black scarf ! How could it be possible that 
any of these could be the ‘"fancy” of a man! 

They were followed by about ten dark, beetle- 
browed males, who carried guitars. 

These were the famous Bohemians! Their 


104 


HIS HOUR 


appearance at all events was disillusioning enough. 
Tamara’s disappointmen twas immense. 

But presently when they began to sing she 
realized that there was something — ^something in 
their music — even though it was of an intense 
unrest. 

She found it was the custom for them to sing a 
weird chant song on the name of each guest, and 
every one must drink to this guest’s health, all 
standing, and quaffing the glasses of champagne 
down at one draught. 

That they all remained sober at the end of the 
evening seemed to do great credit to their heads, 
for Tamara, completely unaccustomed to the smoke 
and the warm room, feared even to sip at her 
glass. 

The toasting over, every one sat down. Prince 
Milaslavski and a Pole being the only two in front 
of the table, and they with immense spirit chaffed 
the company, and called the tunes. 

The music was of the most wild, a queer metallic 
sound, and the airs were full of unexpected har- 
monies and nerve-racking chords. It fired the 
sense, in spite of the hideous singers. 

105 


HIS HOUR 


They all sat there with perfectly immovable 
faces and entirely still hands, — ^singing without 
gesticulations what were evidently passionate love- 
songs! Nothing could have been more incongruous 
or grotesque ! 

But the fascination of it grew and grew. Every 
one of their ugly faces remained printed on 
Tamara’s brain. Long afterward she would 
see them in dreams. 

How little we yet know of the force of sounds! 
How little we know of any of the great currents 
which affect the world and human life! 

And music above any other art stirs the sense. 
Probably the Greek myth of Orpheus and his lute 
was not a myth after all; perhaps Orpheus had 
mastered the occult knowledge of this great power. 
Surely it would be worth some learned scientist’s 
while to investigate from a psychological point of 
view how it is, and why it is, that certain chords 
cause certain emotions, and give base or elevating 
visions to human souls. 

The music of these gipsies was of the devil, it 
seemed to Tamara, and she was not surprised at 
the wild look in Prince Milasldvski’s eyes, for 
106 


Ills HOUR 


she herself — she, well brought up, conventionally 
crushed English Tamara, — ^felt a strange quicken- 
ing of the pulse. 

After an hour or so of this music, two of the 
younger Bohemian women began to dance, not in 
the least with the movements that had shocked Mrs. 
Hardcastle in the Alexandrian troupe on the ship, 
but a foolish valsing, while the shoulders rose and 
fell and quivered like the flapping wings of some 
bird. The shoulders seemed the talented part, 
not the body or hips. 

And then about three o’clock the entire troupe 
filed out of the room for refreshment and rest. The 
atmosphere was thick with smoke, and heated to 
an incredible extent. Some one started to play the 
piano, and every one began to dance a wild round 
— a mazurka, perhaps — and Tamara found herself 
clasped tightly in the arms of her Prince. 

She did not know the step, but they valsed to 
the tune, and all the time he was whispering mad 
things in Russian in her ear. She could not correct 
him, because she did not know what they might 
mean. 

‘‘Doushka,” he said at last. ‘‘So you are awake; 

« 107 


HIS HOUR 


so It is not milk and water after all in those pretty 
blue veins! God! I will teach you to live!’’ 

And Tamara was not angry; she felt nothing 
except an unreasoning pleasure and exultation. 

The amateur bandsman came to a stop, and 
another took his place; but the spell fortunately 
was broken, and she could pull herself together 
and return to sane ways. 

‘T am tired,” she said, when the Prince would 
have gone on, ‘‘and I am almost faint for want of 
air.” So he opened a window and left her for a 
moment in peace. 

She danced again with the first man who asked 
her, going quickly from one to another so as to 
avoid having to be too often held by the Prince. 
But each time she felt his arm round her, back 
again would steal the delicious mad thrill. 

“I hope you are amusing yourself, dear child,” 
her godmother said. “This is a Russian scene; 
you would not see it in any other land.” 

And indeed Tamara was happy, in spite of her 
agitation and unrest. 

She sat down now with Olga Gleboff, and they 
watched the others while they took breath. The 
108 


HIS HOUR 


Prince was dancing with Princess Shebanoff, and 
her charming face was turned up to him with an 
adoring smile. 

“Poor Tatiane, — ” Countess Olga said low to 
herself. 

When the gipsies returned, their music grew 
wilder than ever, and some of the solos seemed to 
touch responsive chords in Tamara’s very bones. 

The Prince sat next her on the sofa now, and 
every few moments he would bend over to take an 
almond, or light a cigarette, so that he touched her 
apparently without intention, but nevertheless with 
intent. And the same new and intoxicating sensa- 
tion would steal through her, and she would draw 
her slender figure away and try to be stiff and severe, 
but with no effect. 

It was long after five o’clock before it was all 
done, and they began to wrap up and say “Good- 
night.” And the troupe, bowing, went out to an- 
other engagement they had. 

“They sing all night and sleep in the day,” 
Count Gleboff told Tamara, as they descended 
the stairs. “At this time of the year they never see 
daylight, only sometimes the dawn.” 

109 


HIS HOUR 


“Tantine,” said the Prince, ‘‘order your motor 
to go back. I sent for my troika, and it is here. 
We must show Madame Loraine what a sleigh 
feels like.’’ 

And the Princess agreed. 

Oh! the pleasure Tamara found when presently 
they were flying over the snow, the side horses 
galloping with swift, sure feet. And under the furs 
she and her godmother felt no cold, while Gritzko, 
this wild Prince, sat facing them, his splendid eyes 
ablaze. 

Presently they stopped and looked out on the 
Gulf of Finland and a vast view. Above were 
countless stars and a young, rising moon. 

It was striking seven as they went to their rooms. 

Such was Tamara’s first outing in this land of 
the North. 


CHAPTER IX 


0 IX days went past before Tamara again 
saw the Prince. Whether he was busy or 
kept away because he wished to, she did 
not know — ^and would not ask — ^but a piqued 
sensation gradually began to rise as she thought 
of him. 

‘T must arrange for you to go to Tsarskoi-Selo 
to see the ceremony of the Emperor blessing the 
waters on the 6th of our January, Tamara,” her 
godmother said, a day or two after the Bohemian 
feast. ‘T have seen it so often, and I do not wish 
to stand about in the cold, but Sonia’s husband is 
one of the aides-de-camp, and, as you know, she 
lives at Tsarskoi. Olga is going out there, and will 
take you with her, and you three can go on; it will 
interest you, I am sure.” 

And Tamara had gladly acquiesced. 
Tsarskoi-Selo, which they reached after half an 
hour’s train, seemed such a quaint place to her. 
Like some summer resort made up of wooden villas, 
111 


HIS HOUR 


only now they were all covered with snow. She 
and Countess Olga had gone together to Princess 
Sonia’s house, and from there to the palace grounds, 
where they followed snow-cleared paths to a sort 

(f 

of little temple near the lake, where they were 
allowed to stand just outside the line of Cossacks 
and watch for the coming procession. 

The sky was heavy, and soon the snow began to 
fall intermittently in big, fluffy flakes. This back- 
ground of white showed up the brilliant scarlet 
uniforms of the escort. Standing in long rows, 
they were an imposing sight. And Tamara 
admired their attractive faces, many so much more 
finely cut than the guards further on. They wore 
fierce beards, and they all seemed to be extremely 
tall and slim, with waists which would not have 
disgraced a girl. And, at the end of the line at the 
corner where they stood, she suddenly saw the 
Prince. He was talking to some other officers, and 
apparently did not see them. Tamara grew angry 
with herself at finding how the very sight of him 
moved her. The procession, soon seen advancing, 
was as a lesser interest, her whole real concentra- 
tion being upon one scarlet form. 

112 


HIS HOUR 


From the time the signal was given that the 
Emperor had started from the palace all the heads 
were bare — bare in a temperature many degrees 
below freezing and in falling snow! It was the 
Prince who gave the word of command, and while 
he stood at attention she watched his face. It 
was severe and rigid, like the face of a statue. On 
duty he was evidently a different creature from 
the wild Gritzko of gipsy suppers. But there was 
no use arguing with herself — ^he attracted her in 
every case. 

Then the procession advanced, and she looked 
at it with growing amazement. This wonderful 
nation! so full of superstition and yet of common 
sense. It seemed astonishing that grown-up 
people should seriously assist at this ceremony of 
sentiment. 

First came the choir-boys with thick coats cover- 
ing their scarlet gowns; then a company of singing 
men; then the priests in their magnificent robes of 
gold and silver, and then the Emperor, alone and 
bareheaded. Afterward followed the Grand 
Dukes and the standard of every guard regiment 
and finally all the aides-de-camps. 

113 


HIS HOUR 


When the Emperor passed she glanced again 
at the Prince. The setness of his face had given 
place to a look of devotion. There was evidently 
a great love for his master in his strange soul. 
When the last figure had moved beyond the little 
temple corner, the tension of all was relaxed, and 
they stood at ease again, and Gritzko appeared to 
perceive the party of ladies, and smiled. 

“I am coming to get some hot coffee after lunch, 
Sonia,” he called out. ‘T promised Marie.” 

‘‘ Does it not give them cold f ” Tamara asked, 
as she looked at the Cossacks’ almost shaven bare 
heads. ‘‘And they have no great-coats on! What 
can they be made of, poor things 

“They get accustomed to it, and it is not at all 
cold to-day, fortunately,” Countess Olga said. 
“They would have their furs on if it were. Don’t 
you think they are splendid men? I love to see 
them in their scarlet; they only wear it on special 
occasions and when they are with the Emperor, 
or at Court balls or birthdays. I am so glad you 
see Gritzko in his.” 

Tamara did not say she had already seen the 
Prince in the scarlet coat; none of her new 
114 


HIS HOUR 


friends were aware that they had met before in 
Egypt. 

All this time the guns were firing, and soon the 
ceremony of dipping the cross in the water was 
over, and the procession started back again. 

It was the same as when it came, only the priests 
were wiping the cross in a napkin, and presently 
all passed out of sight toward the palace, and the 
three ladies walked quickly back to the waiting 
sleigh, half -frozen with cold. 

About ten minutes after they had finished lunch, 
and were sitting at coflFee in Princess Sonia’s cosy 
salon — ^so fresh and charming and like an English 
country house — they heard a good deal of noise in 
the passage, and the Prince came in. He was 
followed by a sturdy boy of eight, and carried in 
his arms a tiny girl, whose poor small body looked 
wizened, while in her little arms she held a crutch. 

“We met in the hall — my friend Marie and I,” 
he said, as he bent to kiss Princess Sonia’s hand, 
and then the other two ladies’, “and we have a 
great deal to say to one another.” 

“These are my children, Mrs. Loraine,” Princess 
Sonia said. “They were coming down to see you; 
115 


HIS HOUR 


but now Gritzko has appeared we shall receive no 
attention, I fear,” and she laughed happily, 
while the little boy came forward, and with beautiful 
manners kissed Tamara’s hand. 

“You are an English lady,” he said, without 
the slightest accent. “Have you a little boy, too 

Tamara was obliged to own she had no children, 
which he seemed to think very unfortunate. 

“Marie always has to have her own way, but 
while she is with Gritzko she is generally good,” 
he announced. 

“How splendidly you speak English!” Tamara 
said. “And only eight years old! I suppose you 
can talk French, too, as well as Russian ?” 

“Naturally, of course,” he replied, with fine 
contempt. “But I’ll tell you something — German 
I do very badly. We have a German governess, 
and I hate her. Her mouth is too full of teeth.” 

“That certainly is a disadvantage,” Tamara 
agreed. 

“When Gritzko gets up with us he makes her 
in a fine rage! She spluttered so at him last week 
the bottom row fell out. We were glad!” 

Prinqess Sonia now interruoted: “What are 

116 


HIS HOUR 


you saying, Peter?” she said. ‘‘Poor Fraiilein! 
You know I shall have to forbid Gritzko from 
going to tea with you. You are all so naughty 
when you get together!” 

There was at once a fierce scream from the other 
side of the room. 

“Maman! we will have Gritzko to tea! I love 
him! — Je I’aime!” and the poor crippled tiny 
Marie nearly strangled her friend with a frantic 
embrace. 

“You see, Maman, we defy you!” the Prince 
said, when he could speak. 

The little boy now joined his sister, and both 
soon shrieked with laughter over some impossible 
tale which was being poured into their ears; and 
Princess Sonia said softly to Tamara: 

“He is too wonderful with children — Gritzko — 
when he happens to like them — ^isn’t he, Olga? 
All of ours simply adore him, and I can never tell 
you of his goodness and gentleness to Marie last 
year when she had her dreadful accident. The 
poor little one will be well some day, we hope, and 
so I do not allow myself to be sad about it; but it 
was a terrible grief.” 


117 


HIS HOUR 


Tamara looked her sympathy, while she mur- 
mured a few words. Princess Sonia was such a 
sweet and charming lady. 

More visitors now came in, and they all drank 
their coffee and tea, but the Prince paid no atten- 
tion to any one beyond casual greetings; he con- 
tinued his absorbing conversation with his small 
friends. 

Tamara was surprised at this new side of him. 
It touched her. And he was such a gloriously 
good-looking picture as he sat there in his scarlet 
coat, while Marie played with the silver cartridges 
across his breast, and Peter with his dagger. 

When she and Countess Olga left to catch an 
early afternoon train he came too. He had to be 
back in Petersburg, he said. Nothing could look 
more desolate than the tracts of country seen from 
the train windows, so near the capital and yet wild, 
uncultivated spaces, part almost like a marsh. 
There seemed to be nothing living but the lonely 
soldiers who guarded the Royal line a hundred 
yards or so off. It depressed Tamara as she gazed 
out, and she unconsciously sighed, while a sad 
look came into her eyes. 


118 


HIS HOUR 


The Prince and Countess Olga and another 
officer, who had joined them, were all chaffing 
gaily while they smoked their cigarettes, but 
Gritzko appeared to be aware of everything that 
was passing, for he suddenly bent over and whis- 
pered to Tamara: 

‘‘Madame, when you have been here long enough 
you will learn never to see what you do not wish.’’ 
Then he turned back to the others, and laughed 
again. 

What did he mean ? she wondered. Were there 
many things then to which one must shut one’s eyes ? 

She now caught part of the conversation that 
was going on. 

“But why won’t you come, Gritzko?” Countess 
Olga was saying. “ It will be most amusing — ^and 
the prizes are lovely, Tatiane, who has seen them, 
says.” 

“I? — to be glued to a bridge table for three 
solid evenings. Mon Dieu!” the Prince cried. 
“Having to take what partner falls to one’s lot! 
No choice! My heavens! nothing would drag 
me. Whatever game I play in life, I will select 
my lady myself.” 


119 


HIS HOUR 


“You are tiresome!” Countess Olga said. 
When they got to the station the Princess’s coup^ 
was waiting, as well as the Gleboff sleigh. 

“Good-bye, and a thousand thanks for taking 
me,” Tamara said, and they waved as Countess 
Olga drove off. And then the Prince handed her 
into the coupe and asked her if she would drop him 
on the way. 

For some time after they were settled under the 
furs and rushing along, he seemed very silent, and 
when Tamara ventured a few remarks he answered 
mechanically. At last after a while: 

“You are going to this bridge tournament at 
the Varishkine’s, I suppose?” he suddenly said. 
“It ought to be just your affair.” 

“Why my affair?” Tamara asked, annoyed. 
“I hate bridge.” 

“So you do. I forgot. But Tantine will take 
you, all the same. Perhaps, if nothing more 
amusing turns up, I will drop in one night and see; 
but — ^wheugh!” and he stretched himself and 
spread out his hands — ^“I have been impossibly 
sage for over a fortnight. I believe I must soon 
break out.” 


120 


I 

I 

I HIS HOUR 

i 

I “What does that mean, Prince — to ‘break out’ 

[ “It means to throw off civilized things and be 
I as mad as one is inclined,” and he smiled mock- 
\ ingly while some queer, restless spirit dwelt in his 
1 eyes. “I always break out when things make 
me think, and just now — ^in the train — ^when you 
looked at the sad country ” 

“That made you think ?” said Tamara, surprised. 

“Well — ^never mind, good little angel. And 
now good-bye,” and he kissed her hand lightly and 
jumped out; they had arrived at his house. 

Tamara drove on to the Serguifskaia with a great 
desire to see him again in her heart. 

And so the days passed and the hours flew. 
Tamara had been in Russia almost three weeks; 
and since the blessing of the waters the time had 
been taken up with a continual round of small 
entertainments. The Court mourning prevented 
as yet any great balls; but there were receptions, 
and “bridges” and dinners, and night after night 
they saw the same people, and Tamara got to 
know them fairly well. But after the excursion 
to Tsarskoi-S^lo for several days she did not see 
121 


HIS HOUR 


the Prince. His military duties took up his whole 
time, her godmother said. And when at last he 
did come it was among a crowd, and there was no 
possible chance of speech. 

^‘This bores me,^^ he announced when he found 
the room full of people, and he left in ten minutes, 
and they did not see him again for a week, when 
they met him at a dinner at the English Embassy. 

Then he seemed cool and respectful and almost 
commonplace, and Tamara felt none of the satis- 
faction she should have done from this changed 
order of things. 

At the bridge tournament he made no appear- 
ance whatever. 

‘‘Why do we see Prince MilaslavskI so seldom 
when we go out, Marraine she asked her god- 
mother one day. “I thought all these people were 
his intimate friends!’’ 

“So they are, dear; but Gritzko is an odd crea- 
ture,” the Princess said. “He asked me once if 
I thought he was an imbecile or a performing mon- 
key, when I reproached him for not being at the 
balls. He only goes out when he is so disposed. 
If some one person amuses him, or if he suddenly 
122 


HIS HOUR 


wants to see us all. It is merely by fits and starts — 
always from the point of view of if he feels inclined, 
never from the observance of any social law, or 
from obligation.” 

‘‘Why on earth do you put up with such man- 
ners?” Tamara exclaimed with irritation. 

“I do not know. We might not in any one else, 
but Gritzko is a privileged person,” the Princess 
said. “You can’t imagine, of course, dear, because 
you do not know him well enough, but he has ways 
and fagons of coaxing. He will do the most out- 
rageous things, and make me very angry, and then 
he will come and put his head in my lap like a 
child, and kiss my hands, and call me ‘Tantine,’ 
and, old woman as I am, I cannot resist him. And 
if one is unhappy or ill, no one can be more tender 
and devoted.” Then she added dreamily: — 
“While as a lover I should think he must be quite 
divine.” 

Tamara took another cup of tea and looked into 
the fire. She was ashamed to show how this con- 
versation interested her. 

“Tatiane Shebanoff is madly in love with him, 
poor thing, and I do not believe he has ever given 
9 123 


HIS HOUR 


her any real encouragement,” the Princess con- 
tinued. “I have seen him come to a ball, and 
when all the young women are longing for him to 
ask them to dance, he will go oflF with me, or 
old Countess Nivenska, and sit talking half 
the night, apparently unaware of any one else’s 
presence.” 

“It seems he must be the most exasperating, 
tiresome person one has ever heard of, Marraine,” 
Tamara exclaimed. “He rides over you all, and 
you cannot even be angry, and continually forgive 
him.” 

“But then he has his serious side,” the Princess 
went on, eager to defend her favorite. “He is 
now probably studying some deep military prob- 
lem all this time, and that is why we have not seen 
him,” — ^and then noticing the scornful pose of 
Tamara’s head she laughed. “Don’t be so con- 
temptuous, dear child,” she said. “Perhaps you 
too will understand some day.” 

“That is not very likely,” Tamara said. 

But alas! for the Princess’ optimistic surmises 
as to the Prince’s occupations, a rumor spread 
toward the end of the week of the maddest orgie 
124 


HIS HOUR 


j which had taken place at the Fontonka house. It 
sounded like a phantasmagoria in which unclothed 
I dancers, and wild beasts, and unheard-of feats 
seemed to float about. And the Princess sighed 
as she refuted the gossip it caused. 

“Oh, my poor Gritzko! if he might only even 
for a while remain in a state of grace,” she said. 

And Tamara’s interest in him, in spite of her 
shocked contempt, did not decrease. 

I And so the time went on. 

She was gradually growing to know the society 
better, and to get a peep at the national point of 
view. They were a wonderfully uncomplex people, 
with the perfect ease which only those at the bottom 
of the social ladder who have not started to climb 
at all, and those who have reached the top, like 
these, can have. They were casually friendly 
when the strangers pleased them, and completely 
unimpressed with their intrinsic worth if they did 
not. They seemed to see in a moment the shades 
in people, and only to select the best. And when 
Tamara came to talk seriously with even the most 
apparently frivolous, she found they all had the 
s^me trace of vague melancholy and mystery, as 

125 


HIS HOUR 


though they were grasping in the dark for some- 
thing spiritual they wished to seize. Their views 
and boundaries of principles in action seemed to 
be limitless, just as their vast country seems to 
have no landmarks for miles. One could imagine 
the unexpected happening in any of their lives. 
And the charm and fascination of them continued 
to increase. 

It was late one afternoon when Prince Milas- 
lavski again came prominently into view on 
Tamara’s horizon. 

She was sitting alone reading in the blue salon 
when he walked unceremoniously in. 

‘‘Give me some tea, Madame,” he said. “The 
Princess met me in the hall, and told me I 
should find you here; so now let us begin by 
this.” 

Tamara poured it out and leaned back in the 
sofa below the beautiful Falconet group, which 
made — ^and makes — ^the glory of the blue salon in 
the Ardacheff House. She felt serene. These 
two weeks of unawakened emotions and just pleas- 
ant entertainments since the day at Tsarskoi had 
given her fresh poise. 


126 


HIS HOUR 


*‘And what do you think of us by now, 
Madame?” he asked. 

“I think you are a strange band,” she said. 
‘‘You are extremely intellectual, you are brilliant, 
and yet in five minutes all intelligence can fade out 
of your faces, and all interest from your talks, and 
you fiy to bridge.” 

“It is because we are primitive and unspoilt; 
this is our new toy, and we must play with it; the 

excitement will wane, and a fresh one come 

he paused and then went on in another tone — 

“You in England have many outlets for your 
supervitality — ^you cannot judge of other nations 
who have not. You had a magnificent system of 
government. It took you about eight hundred 
years to build up, and it was the admiration of 
the world — ^and now you are allowing your Social- 
ists and ignorant plebeian place hunters to pull it 
all to pieces and throw it away. That is more 
foolish surely, than even to go crazy over bridge!’’ 

Tamara sighed. 

“Have you ever been in England, Prince?” 
* she asked. 

He sat down on the sofa beside her. 


127 


HIS HOUR 


"‘No — but one day I shall go, Paris is as far as 
I have got on the road as yet.” 

“You would think us all very dull, I expect, 
and calculating and restrained,” Tamara said 
softly. “You might like the hunting, but some- 
how I do not see you in the picture there 

He got up and moved restlessly to the mantle- 
piece, where he leaned, while he stirred his tea 
absently. There was almost an air of bravado 
in the insouciant tone of his next remark — 

“Do you know, I did a dreadful thing,” he said. 
“And it has grieved me terribly, and I must have 
your sympathy. I hurt my Arab horse. You 
remember him, Suliman, at the Sphinx?” 

“Yes,” said Tamara. 

“I had a little party to some of my friends, and 
we were rather gay — not a party you would have 
approved of, but one which pleased us all the same 
— ^and they dared me to ride Suliman from the 
stables to the big saloon.” 

“And I suppose you did?” Tamara’s voice 
was full of contempt. 

He noticed the tone, and went on defiantly: 

“Of course; that was easy; only the devil of a 

128 


HIS HOUR 


carpet made him trip at the bottom again, and he 
has strained two of his beautiful feet. But you 
should have seen him!” he went on proudly. “As 
dainty as the finest gentleman in and out the 
chairs, and his great success was putting his 
forelegs on the fender seat!” 

“How you have missed your metier!” Tamara 
said, and she leant back in her sofa and sur- 
veyed him as he stood, a graceful tall figure in his 
blue long coat. “Think of the triumph you 
would have in a Hippodrome!” 

He straightened himself suddenly, his great eyes 
flashed, and over his face came a fierceness she 
had not guessed. 

“I thought you had melted a little — ^here in our 
snow, but I see it is the mummy there all the same,” 
he said. 

Tamara laughed. For the first time it was she 
who held the reins. 

“ Even to the wrappings,” — and she gently kicked 
out the soft gray folds of her skirt. 

He took a step nearer her, and then he stood 
still, and while the fierceness remained in his face, 
his eyes were full of pain. 

129 


HIS HOUR 


She glanced up at him, and over her came almost 
a sense of indignation that he should so unworthily 
pass his time. 

‘‘How you waste your life!” she said. “Oh! 
think to be a man, and free, and a great landowner. 
To have thousands of peasants dependent upon 
one’s frown. To have the opportunity of lifting 
them into something useful and good. And to 
spend one’s hours and find one’s pleasure in such 
things as this! Riding one’s favorite horse at the 
risk of its and one’s own neck, up and down the 
stairs. Ah! I congratulate you. Prince!” 

He drew himself up again, as if she had hit him, 
and the pain in his eyes turned to fiame. 

“I allow no one to criticize my conduct,” he 
said. “If it amused me to ride a bear into this 
room and let it eat you up, I would not hesitate.” 

“I do not doubt it,” and Tamara laughed 
scornfully. “It would be in a piece with all the 
rest.” 

He raised his head with an angry toss, and then 
they looked at each other like two fighting cats, 
when fortunately the door opened, and the Princess 
came in. 


130 


HIS HOUR 


In a moment he had laughed, and resumed his 
habitually insouciant mien. 

“Madame has been reading me a lecture,” he 
said. “She thinks I am wasted in the Emperor’s 
escort, and a circus is my place.” 

Tamara did not speak. 

“Why do you seem always to quarrel so, 
Gritzko?” the Princess said, plaintively. “It 
really quite upsets me, dear boy.” 

“You must not worry, Tantine,” and he kissed 
the Princess’ hand. “We don’t quarrel; we are 
the best of friends; only we tell one another home 
truths. I came this afternoon to ask you if you 
will come to Milaslav next week. I think Madame 
ought to see Moscow, and we might make an 
excursion from there just for a night,” and he 
looked at Tamara with a lifting of the brows. 

“Then, Tantine, she could see how I cow my 
peasants with a knout, and grind them to starva- 
tion. It would be an interesting picture for her to 
take back to England.” 

“I should enjoy all that immensely, of course,” 
Tamara said, pleasantly. “Many thanks. Prince.” 

“I shall be so honored,” and he bowed politely; 

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HIS HOUR 


then, turning to the Princess: ‘^You will settle it, 
won’t you, Tantine?” 

“I will look at our engagements, dear boy. We 
will try to arrange it. I can tell you at the ballet,” 
and the Princess smiled encouragingly up at him. 
^‘My godchild has not seen our national dancing 
yet, so we go to-night with Prince Miklefski and 
Valonne.” 

“Then it is au revoir,” he said, and kissing their 
hands he left them. 

When the door was shut and they were alone. 

“Tamara, what had you said to Gritzko to move 
him so?” the Princess asked. “I, who know every 
line of his face, tell you I have not seen him so 
moved since his mother’s death.” 

So Tamara told her, describing the scene. 

“My dear, you touched him in a tender spot,” 
her godmother said. “His mother was a saint al- 
most to those people at Milaslav; they worshipped 
her. She was very beautiful and very sweet, and 
after her husband’s death she spent nearly all her 
life there. She started schools to teach the peasants 
useful things, and she encouraged them and cared 
for their health; and her great wish was that 
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ms HOUR 


Gritzko should carry out her schemes. She was 
no advanced Liberal, the late Princess, but she 
had such a tender heart, she longed to bring 
happiness to those in her keeping, and teach them 
to find happiness themselves.’’ 

‘'And he has let it all slide, I suppose,” Tamara 
said. 

“ WelL not exactly that,” and the Princess sighed 
deeply; “but I dare say these over gay companions 
of his do not leave him much time for the arrange- 
ment such things require. Ah! if you knew, 
Tamara,” she went on, “how fond I am of that 
boy, and how I feel the great and noble parts of 
his character are running to waste, you would 
understand my grief.” 

“You are so kind, dear Marraine,” Tamara 
said. “But surely he must be very weak.” 

“No, he is not weak; it is a dare-devil wild strain 
in him that seems as if it must out. He has a will 
of iron, and never breaks his word; only to get him 
to be serious, or give his word, is as yet an unac- 
complished task. I sometimes think if a great 
love could come into his life it would save him — 
his whole soul could wake to that.” 


133 


HIS HOUR 


Tamara looked down and clasped her hands. 

"‘But it does not seem likely to happen, does it, 
Marraine 

The Princess sighed again. 

“I would like him to love you, dear child,” she 
said; and then as Tamara did not answer she went 
on softly almost to herself: ‘‘My brother Alexis 
was just such another as Gritzko. That season 
he spent with me in London, when your mother 
and I were young, he played all sorts of wild pranks. 
We three were always together. He was killed in 
a duel after, you know. It was all very sad.” 

Tamara stroked her godmother’s hand. 

“Dear, dear Marraine,” she said. 

Then they checked sentiment and went to dress 
for dinner, arm in arm. They had grown real 
friends in these three short weeks. 


CHAPTER X 


he scene at the ballet was most brilliant, 
A as it is always on a Sunday night. The 
great auditorium, with its blue silk- 
curtained boxes, the mass of glittering uniforms, 
and the ladies in evening-dress, although they 
were all in black, made a gay spectacle almost like 
a gala night. Then it is so delightful to have one’s 
eyes pleased with what is on the stage and yet be 
able to talk. 

But Tamara, as she sat and looked at it, was not 
enjoying herself. She was overcome with a vague 
feeling of unrest. She hated having to admit that 
the Prince was the cause of it. She could not look 
ahead; she was full of fear. She knew now that 
when he was near her she experienced certain 
emotion, that he absorbed far too much of her 
thoughts. He did not really care for her probably, 
and if he did, how could one hope to be happy with 
such a wild, fierce man ? No, she must control her- 
self; she must conquer his infiuence over her, and 

135 


HIS HOUR 


if she could not she could at least go away. Eng- 
land seemed very uninteresting and calm — ^and 
safe! 

Filled with these sage resolutions she tried to 
fix her eyes on the stage, but unconsciously they 
continually strayed to a tall blue figure which was 
seated in the front row of the stalls with a number 
of officers of the Chevaliers Gardes. And when 
the curtain went down, — and instead of the Prince 
joining them in the box, as she fully expected he 
would do, he calmly leaned against the orchestra 
division and surveyed the house with his glasses — 
she felt a sudden pang, and talked as best she might 
to the many friends who thronged to pay the 
Princess court. 

Gritzko did not even glance their way! he stood 
laughing with his comrades, and it would have 
been impossible to imagine anything more insouci- 
ant and attractive and provoking than the creature 
looked. 

“No wonder Tatiane Sh^banoff is in love with 
him — or that actress — or — the rest!” Tamara 
thought. 

And then a wave of rage swept over her. She 

136 


fflS HOUR 


at least would not give in and join this throng! 
To be his plaything. She would be mistress of 
herself and her thoughts! 

But alas! all these emotions not unmixed with 
pique, spoilt the ballet’s second act! 

For the interval after it, the two ladies got up 
and went into the little ante-chamber beyond the 
box. Tamara was glad. There she could not see 
what this annoying Prince would do. 

What he did do was to open the door in a few 
minutes and saunter in. He greeted Tamara with 
polite indifference, and having calmly displaced 
Count Valonne, sat down by the Princess’ side. 

Valonne was a charming person, and he and 
Tamara were great friends. He chatted on now, 
and she smiled at him, but with ears preternaturally 
sharpened she heard the conversation of the other 
pair. 

It was this. 

‘‘Tantine, I am feeling the absolute devil to- 
night. Will you come and have supper with me 
after this infernal ballet is over ?” 

“ Gritzko — ^what is it ? Something has disturbed 
you!” 


137 


HIS HOUR 


He leant forward and rested his chin on his 
hands. ‘'Well, your haughty guest touched me 
with too sharp a spur, perhaps,” he said, “but she 
was right. I do waste my life. I have been think- 
ing of my mother. I believe she might not be 
pleased with me sometimes. And then I felt mad, 
aud now I must do something to forget. So if you 
won’t sup 

“Oh! Gritzko!” the Princess said. 

“I telephoned home and ordered things to be 
ready. I know you don’t like a restaurant. Say 
you will come,” and he kissed her hand. “I have 
asked all the rest.” And the Princess had to 
consent ! 

“You must promise not to quarrel any more 
with my godchild if we do. I am sure you frighten 
and upset her, Gritzko — promise me,” she said. 
He laughed. 

“I upset her! She is too cold and good to be 
upset!” 

Tamara still continued to talk to Valonne, and 
presently they all moved into the box, and the 
Prince sat down beside her, and again as he leaned 
over in the shaded light that nameless physical 
138 


HIS HOUR 


thrill crept over her. Was she really cold, she 
asked herself. If so, why should she shiver as she 
was shivering now ? 

“I wonder if you have any heart at all, Ma- 
dame?’’ he said. ‘‘If under the mummy’s wrap- 
pings there is some flesh and blood?” 

Then she turned and answered him with passion. 
“Of course there is,” she said. 

He bent over still nearer. “Just for to-night, 
shall we not quarrel or spar?” he whispered. “See, 
I will treat you as a sister and friend. I want to be 
petted and spoilt — ^I am sad.” 

Tamara, of course, melted at once! His extra- 
ordinarily attractive voice was very deep and had 
a note in it which touched her heart. 

“Please don’t be sad,” she said softly. “Perhaps 
you think I was unkind to-day, but indeed it was 
only because — Oh! because it seemed to me such 
waste that you — ^you should be like that.” 

“It hurt like the flend, you know,” he said, 
“the thought of the damned circus. I think we 
are particularly sensitive as a race to those sort of 
things. If you had been a man I would have killed 
you.” 


10 


139 


HIS HOUR 


“I hated to hear what you told me,’’ and Tamara 
looked down. ‘‘It seemed so dreadful — so barbaric 
— and so childish for a man who really has a brain. 
If you were just an animal person like some of the 
others are, it would not have mattered; but you — 
please I would like you never to do any of these 
mad things again ” 

Then she stopped suddenly and grew tenderly 
pink. She realized the inference he must read in 
her words. 

He did not speak for a moment, only devoured 
her with his great blue-gray eyes. Of what he was 
thinking she did not know. It made her uncom- 
fortable and a little ashamed. Why had she 
melted, it was never any use. So she drew herself 
up stiffly and leaned back in her seat. 

Then down at the side by the folds of her dress 
he caught her hand while he said quite low: 

“ Madame, I must know — do you mean 
that ? ” 

“Yes,” she said, and tried to take away her 
hand. “Yes, I mean that I think it dreadful for 
any human being to throw things away — ^and Oh! 
I would like you to be very great.” 

140 


HIS HOUR 


He did not let go her hand, indeed he held it 
the more tightly. 

“You are a dear after all, and I will try,” he 
said. “And when I have pleased you you must 
give me a reward.” 

“Alas! What reward could I give you. Prince,” 
she sighed. 

“That I will tell you when the time comes.” 

Thus peace seemed to be restored, and soon the 
curtain fell for the interval before the last act, and 
the Prince got up and went out of the box. 

He did not reappear again, but was waiting for 
them to start for his house. 

“I met Stephen Strong, Tantine,” he said. 
“He left me at Trieste, you know, and only arrived 
in Petersburg to-day. He has got a cousin with 
him. Lord something, so I have asked them both 
to come along. They will be a little late they said.” 

“It is not Jack Courtray by chance — ^is it?” 
Tamara asked, in an interested voice, as they 
went. “Mr. Strong has a cousin who lives near 
us in the country and he is always traveling about.” 

“Yes, I think that is the name — Courtray. So 
you know him then!” and the Prince leant forward 
141 


HIS HOUR 


from the seat which faced them. “An ami 
d’enfance ?’’ 

“We used to play cricket and fish and bird’s- 
nest,” she said. “Tom — ^my brother Tom — ^was 
his fag at Eton — ^he is one of my oldest friends — 
dear old Jack.” 

“How fortunate I met him to-night!” 

“Indeed, yes.” 

Then her attention was diverted, as it always 
was each time she saw the blazing braziers and 
heaped up flaming piles of wood at the corners of 
the streets, since she had been in Russia. “How 
glad I am there is something to make the poor 
people warm,” she said. 

“ When it gets below twelve degrees it is diflScult 
to enjoy life, certainly,” the Prince agreed. “And, 
indeed, it is hard sometimes not to freeze.” 

It was a strange lurid picture, the Isvostchiks 
drawn round, while the patient horses with their 
sleighs stood quiet some little distance off. 

How hard must existence be to these poor 
things. 

Supper could not be ready for half an hour, the 
Prince told them when they got to the Fontonka 

142 


HIS HOUR 


House, and as they all arrived more or less 
together, they soon paired off for bridge. 

“I am going to show Mrs. Loraine my pictures,’’ 
the host said. “She admires our Catherine and 
Peter the Great.” 

And in the salon where they all sat, he began 
pointing out this one and that, making comments 
in a distrait voice. But when they came to the 
double doors at the end he opened them wide, 
and led Tamara into another great room. 

“This is the ballroom,” he said. “It is like all 
ballrooms, so we shall not linger over that. I 
have two Rembrandts in my own apartment 
beyond which it may interest you to see, and a 
few other relics of the past.” 

He was perfectly matter of fact, his manner 
had not a shade of gallantry in it, and Tamara 
accepted this new situation and followed him with- 
out a backward thought. 

They seemed to go through several sheet-shrouded 
salons and came out into a thoroughly comfortable 
room. Its general aspect of decoration had a 
Byzantine look, and on the floor were several 
magnificent bear skins, while around the walls 
143 


HIS HOUR 


low bookcases with quantities of books stood. 
And above them many arms were crossed. Over 
the mantlepiece a famous Rembrandt frowned, 
and another from the opposite wall. But it was 
strange there were no photographs of dancers or 
actresses about as Tamara would have thought. 

The Prince talked intelligently. He seemed to 
know of such things as pictures, and understood 
their technique. And if he had been an elderly 
art critic he could not have been more aloof. 

Presently Tamara noticed underneath the first 
picture there was hung a quaint sword. Some- 
thing in its shape and workmanship attracted her 
attention, and she asked its history. 

The Prince took it down and placed it in her 
hand. 

“That, sword belonged to a famous person,” 
he said — ^“a Cossack — Stenko Razin was his name 
— a robber and a brigand and a great chief. He 
loved a lady, a Persian Princess whom he had 
captured, and one day when out on his yacht on 
the Volga, being drunk from a present of brandy 
some Dutch travellers had brought him, he clasped 
her in his arms. She was very beautiful and 
144 


HIS HOUR 


gentle and full of exquisite caresses, and he loved 
her more than all his wealth. But mad thoughts 
mounted to his brain, and after making an oration 
to the Volga for all the riches and plunder she had 
brought him, he reproached himself that he had 
never given this river anything really valuable 
in return, and then exclaiming he would repair 
his fault, unclasped the clinging arms of his mis- 
tress and flung her overboard.’’ 

‘‘What a horrible brute!” exclaimed Tamara, 
and she put down the sword. 

The Prince took it up and drew it from its sheath. 

“The Cossacks had a wild strain in them even 
in those days,” he said. “You must not be too 
hard on me for merely riding my horse!” 

“Would you be cruel like that, too. Prince?” 
Tamara asked; and she sat down for a second on 
the arm of a carved chair. And when he had put 
the sword back in its place, he bent forward and 
leaned on the back of it. 

“Yes, I could be cruel, I expect,” he said. “I 
could be even brutal if I were jealous, or the 
woman I loved played me false, but I would not 
be cruel to her while it hurt myself. Razin lost 
145 


HIS HOUR 


his pleasure for days through one mad personal 
act. It would have been more sensible to have 
kept her until he was tired of her, or she had 
grown cold to him. Don’t you agree with me about 
that ?” 

‘‘It is a horrible history and I hate it,” Tamara 
said. “Such ways I do not understand. For me 
love means something tender and true which 
could never want to injure the thing it loved.’^ 

He looked at her gravely. 

“Lately I have wondered what love could mean 
for me. Tell me what you think, Madame,” he 
said. 

She resolved not to allow any emotion to master 
her, though she was conscious of a sudden beating 
of her heart. 

“You would torture sometimes, and then you 
would caress.” 

“I would certainly caress.” 

He moved from his position and walked across 
the room, while he talked as though the words 
burst from him. 

“Yes, I should demand unquestioning surrender, 
and if it were refused me, then I might be cruel. 
146 


HIS HOUR 


And if my love were cold or capricious, then I 
would leave her. But if she loved me truly — ^my 
God, it would be bliss.” 

“Think how it would hurt her when you did 
those foolish things though,” Tamara said. 

He stopped short in his restless walk. 

“No one does foolish things when he is happy, 
Madame. All such outbursts are the froth of a 
soul in its seething. But if one were satisfied — ” 
he paused, and then he went on again. “Oh! 
If you knew! — ^In the desert in Egypt I used to 
think I had found rest, sometimes. I am sated 
with this life here. A quoi bon, Madame! — ^the 
same thing year after year! — ^and then since I have 
known you. I have wondered if perhaps you in 
your country could teach me peace.” 

“So many of you are so desequilibr^s,” Tamara 
said. “You seem to be so polished and sensible 
and even great, and then in a moment you are oif 
at a tangent, displaying that want of discipline 
that we at home would not permit in a child.” 

“Yes it is true.” 

“It seems that you love, and must have, or you 
hate and must kill. There are storms and passions, 

147 


HIS HOUR 


and the gaiety of children and their irresponsibility, 
and all on the top is good manners and smiles, but 
underneath — have a feeling I know not what 
volcano may burst.” 

“To-night I feel one could flame with me.” 
He came up close now and looked into her eyes, 
as if he were going to say something, and then he 
restrained himself. 

Tamara did not move, she looked at him 
gravely. 

“You all seem as if you had no aim,” she said. 
“You are not interested in the politics of your 
country. You don’t seem to do anything but kill 
time — ^Why ?” 

“Our country!” he said, and he flung himself 
into a seat near. “It would be difficult to make 
you understand about that. In the old days of the 
serfs, it was all very well. One could be a good 

landlord and father to them all, but now ” 

Then he got up restlessly and paced the room. 
“Now there are so many questions. If one would 
think it would drive one mad, but I am a soldier, 
Madame, so I do not permit myself to speculate 
at all.” 


\ 


148 


HIS HOUR 


“Things are not then as you would wish?’" she 
asked. 

“As I would wish — no, not as I would wish — 
but as I told you, I do not mix myself up with 
them. I only obey the Emperor and shall to the 
end of my life.” 

Tamara saw she had stirred too deep waters. 
His face wore a look of profound melancholy. She 
had never felt so drawn toward him. She let her 
eyes take in the picture he made. There was 
something very noble about his brow and the set 
of his head. Who could tell what thoughts were 
working in his brain. Presently he got up again 
and knelt by her side — ^his movements had the 
grace and agility of a cat. He took her hand and 
kissed it. 

“Madame, please don’t make me think,” he 
said. “The question is too great for one man to 
help. I do not go with the Liberals or any of the 
revolt. Indeed I am far on the other side. Good 
to this country should all have come in a different, 
finer way, and now it must work out its own sal- 
vation as best It may. For me, my only duty is 
to my master. Nothing else could count.” His 
149 


HIS HOUR 


eyes which looked into hers seemed great sombre 
pools of unrest and pain. 

She did not take away her hand and he kissed 
it again. 

Then the clock on the mantlepiece chimed one, 
and she started to her feet. 

‘^Oh! Prince, should we not be thinking of 
supper,” she said. ‘‘Come, let us forget we have 
been serious and go back and eat!” 

He rose. 

“They have probably gone in without us, they 
know me so well,” he said; “but as you say, we 
will no more be serious, we will laugh.” 

Then he took her hand, and merrily, like two 
children, they ran through all the big empty 
rooms to find exactly what he had predicted had 
occurred. The party were at supper quite 
unconcerned ! 

It was such a gay scene. Princess Sonia and 
Serge Grekoff were busily cutting raw ham, by 
their places; while others drank tea or vodka 
or champagne, or helped themselves from various 
dishes the servants had brought up. There w^as 
no ceremony or stiffness, each one did as he pleased. 
150 


HIS HOUR 


And there sitting by Olga GlebofT, already per- 
fectly at home, was Lord Courtray; and further 
down the Princess Ardacheff sat by Stephen Strong. 

‘‘Gritzko — ^we could not wait!” Countess Olga 
said. 

Then both the Englishmen got up and greeted 
Tamara. 

“Fancy seeing you here, Tamara! What a bit 
of luck!” Jack Courtray said. 


CHAPTER XI 


J ACK COURTRAY was a thoroughly good 
all-around sportsman, and had an immense 
success with women as a rule. His methods 
were primitive and direct. When not hunting or 
shooting, he went straight to the point with a 
beautiful simplicity unhampered by sentiment, 
and then when wearied with one woman, moved 
on to the next. 

He was a tremendously good fellow every man 
said. Just a natural animal creature, whom groom- 
ing and polishing in the family for some h^dred 
or so of years had made into a gi^leman. 

He was as ignorant as he could well be. To 
him the geography of the world meant different 
places for sport. India reprepi|ted tigers and 
elephants. It had no towns or histories that 
mattered, it had jungles and |orests. Africa said 
lions. Austria, chamois — and Russia, bears! 

Women were either sisters, or old friends and 
jolly comrades — like Tamara?. Or they came under 

152 


HIS HOUR 


the category of sport. A lesser sport, to be indulged 
in when the rarer beasts were not obtainable for 
his gun — ^but still sport! 

He found himself in a delightful milieu. The 
prospect of certain bears in the near future — a 
dear old friend to frolic with in the immediate 
present, and the problematic joys of a possible 
affair to be indulged in meanwhile. No wonder 
he was in the best of spirits, and when Tamara, 
without arriere pensee, took the empty place at 
his side, he bent over her and filled her plate with 
the thinnest ham he had been able to cut, with all 
the apparent air of a devoted lover. And if she 
had looked up she would have seen that the Prince 
suddenly had begun to watch her with a fierceness 
in his eyes. 

‘‘This is a jolly place,” Jack Courtray said. He 
had just the faintest lisp, which sounded rather 
attractive, and Tamara, after the storms and 
emotions of the past few days, found a distinct 
pleasure and rest in his obviousness. 

It is an ill wind which blows no one any good, 
for presently the Prince turned and devoted him- 
self to Tatiane Sh^banoff. 

153 


HIS HOUR 


She was quite the prettiest of all this little clique, 
petite and fair and sweet. Divorced from a brute 
of a husband a year or so ago, and now married to 
an elderly Prince. 

And she loved Gritzko with passion, and while 
she was silent about it, her many friends told 
him so. 

For his part he remained unconcerned, and 
sometimes troubled himself about her, and some- 
times not. 

And so the evening wore on, and apparently it 
had no distinct sign that it was to be one of the 
finger-posts of fate. 

When all had finished supper, they moved back 
into another great room. 

“You must notice this, Tamara, it is very Rus- 
sian,’’ her godmother said. 

It was an immense apartment with a great 
porcelain stove at one corner, and panelled with 
wood, and it suggested to Tamara, for no sane 
reason, something of an orthodox church! One 
end was bare, and the other carpeted with great 
Persian rugs, had huge divans spread about; 
there was an electric piano and an organ, and 
154 


HIS HOUR 


there were also crossed foils, and masks, and 
everything for a fencing bout. 

The Prince went to the piano and started a 
valse. Then he came up to Tamara and asked 
her to dance. 

There was no trace left of his respectful friendli- 
ness! His sleepy eyes were blazing, he had never 
looked more oriental, or more savage, or more 
intense. 

It was almost with a thrill of fear that Tamara 
yielded herself to his request. He clasped her so 
tightly she could hardly breathe, all she knew was 
she seemed to be floating in the air, and to be 
crushed against his breast. 

“Prince, please, I am suffocating!” she cried 
at last. 

Then he swung her off her feet, and stopped 
by an armchair, and Tamara subsided into it, 
panting, not able to speak. And all across her 
milk-white chest there were a row of red marks 
from the heavy silver cartridges, which cross in 
two rows in the Cossack dress. 

“I would like those brands of me to last forever,” 
the Prince said. 


11 


155 


HIS HOUR 


Tamara lay back in the chair a prey to tumul- 
tuous emotions. She ought to be disgusted she 
supposed, and of course she was — ^such an unciv- 
ilized horrible thought! but at the same time every 
nerve was tingling and her pulse was beating with 
the strange thrills she had only lately begun to 
dream of. 

“Tamara! By jove! What have you done to 
your neck?” Jack Courtray said, as he 
came up. 

And Tamara was glad she had a gauze scarf 
over her arm, which she wrapped around care- 
lessly as she said: 

“Nothing, Jack — let’s dance!” 

“What an awfully decent chap our host is, isn’t 
he!” Lord Courtray said, as they ambled along 
in their valse. “And jolly good-looking too — ^for 
a foreigner. These Russians are men after my 
own heart!” 

“Yes, he is good-looking,” admitted Tamara. 
“If he weren’t so wild; but don’t you think he 
has a frightfully savage expression. Jack?” 

“If you are intending to play with him, old girl, 
take my advice, you had better look out,” and he 
156 


HIS HOUR 


laughed his merry laugh as they stopped because 
the piano stopped. 

Meanwhile the Prince had left the room. 

“Gritzko has gone to telephone for a Tzigane 
band/’ Princess Sonia said. ‘‘And to the club 
and to the reception at Madame Sueboffs, and 
soon we shall have enough people for a contre- 
danse — ^and some real fun.” 

That it was almost three o’clock in the morning 
never seemed to have struck anyone! 

“Now, tell me everything, Tamara,” Lord 
Courtray said, as they sat down on one of the big 
divans. “Give me a few wrinkles. I can see one 
wants to comprehend these tent ropes.” 

“Well, first they are the nicest people you 
could possibly meet. Jack,” Tamara said. “And 
don’t imagine because they skylark like this, and 
sit up all night, that they aren’t most dignified 
when they have to be. That is their charm, this 
sense of the fitness of things. They have not got 
to have any pretence like some of us have. Not 
one of them has a scrap of pose. They are nice 
to you because they like you, or they leave you 
entirely alone if they do not. And some days 
157 


HIS HOUR 


when they are all together they will whisper and 
titter and have jokes among themselves, leaving 
you completely out in the cold — ^what would really 
be fearful ill-manners with us, but it is not in the 
least, it is just they have forgotten you are there, 
and as likely as not you will be the center of the 
whispering in the next minute. They are all like 
volcanoes with the most beautiful Faberger enamel 
on the top.’’ 

“And the men? I suppose they make awful 
love ?” 

“I don’t think so,” went on Tamara, while she 
stupidly blushed. “They all seem to be just 
merry friends, and the young ones don’t go out 
very much. I don’t mean the quite, quite young 
who dance with girls, but the young men. My 
godmother says they are very hard worked, and in 
their leisure they like to have dinners in their regi- 
ments — or at restaurants — ^with, with other sort 
of ladies, where they can do what they please. It 
seems a little elementary — don’t you think so ?” 

“Jolly common-sense!” said Jack Courtray. 

“And then, you see, if by chance, when they are 
in the world, if they do fall in love, it is possible 

158 


HIS HOUR 


for the lady to get a divorce here without any 
scandal and fuss, and the whole clan stick to their 
own member, no matter how much in the wrong 
she may be, and so all is arranged, and life seems 
much simpler and apparently happier than it is 
with us. If it is really so I cannot say, I have not 
been here long enough to judge.” 

“It sounds a kind of Utopia,” and Lord Courtray 
laughed. And just then the Prince came into the 
room again, and over to them and they got up and 
the two men went off together to examine the foils. 

Presently the band arrived and more guests, 
and soon the contre-danse was begun. That 
grown-up people could seriously take pleasure in 
this amazing romp was a new and delightful idea 
to Tamara. 

It was a sort of enormous quadrille with numer- 
ous figures and farandole, while one sat on a chair 
between the figures, as at a cotillon. And toward 
the end the company stamped and cried, and the 
band sang, and nothing could have been more gay 
and exciting and wild. 

Before they began, the Prince came up to Tamara 
and said: 


159 


HIS HOUR 


‘‘I want you to dance this with me. I have 
had it on purpose to show you a real Russian 
sight.” 

They had moved into the ballroom by then, 
which was now a blaze of light, while as if by 
magic the sheet coverings had been removed from 
the chairs. 

And the Prince exerted himself to amuse and 
please his partner, and did not again clasp her too 
tight, only whenever she had turns with her country- 
man, his eyes would flame, and he would immedi- 
ately interrupt them and carry her off. 

Tamara felt perfectly happy, she was no longer 
analyzing and questioning, and she was no longer 
fighting against her inclination. She abandoned 
herself to the rushing stream of life. 

It was about five o’clock when some one sug- 
gested supper at the Islands was now the proper 
thing. This was the delightful part about them 
— on no occasion was there ever a halt for the con- 
sideration of ways and means. They wanted 
some particular amusement and — ^had it! Con- 
vention, from an English point of view, remained 
an unknown quantity. — ^Now those who decided 
160 


HIS HOUR 


to continue the feasting all got into their waiting 
conveyances. 

With the thermometer at fifteen degrees Reaumur, 
a coachman’s life is not one altogether to be 
envied in Russia, but apparently custom will make 
anything endurable. 

“I know you like the troika, Tamara,” Princess 
Ardacheff said. ‘‘So you go with Olga and 
Gritzko and your friend — only be sure you wrap 
up your head.” 

And when they were all getting in, the Countess 
Gl^boff said: 

“It is so terribly cold to-night, Gritzko. I am 
going to sit with my back to the horses, so as not 
to get the wind in my face.” 

When they were tucked in under the furs this 
arrangement seemed to Jack Courtray one of real 
worth, for he instantly proceeded to take Countess 
Olga’s hand, while he whispered that he was cold 
and she could not be so inhuman as to let a poor 
stranger freeze ! 

It seemed amusing to look from the windows of 
a private room, down upon a gay supping throng, 
in the general salle at the restaurant on the Islands, 
161 


HIS HOUR 


while Tziganes played and their supper was being 
prepared. 

‘‘Who could think it was five o’clock in the 
morning! What a lesson for our rotten old County 
Council in London,” Jack Courtray said. “By 
Jove! this is the place for me!” and he proceeded 
to make violent love to Olga Gleboff, to who’s side 
he remained persistently glued. 

And then the gayest repast began; nothing could 
have been more entertaining or full of wild entrain , 
and yet no one over-did it, or was vulgar or coarse. 

At the last moment, when they were all starting 
for home about seven o’clock. Countess Olga 
decided she could not face the cold of the open 
sleigh, and Lord Courtray and she got into her 
motor instead. 

It was done so quickly, Tamara was already 
packed into the troika, and the outside steeds 
were prancing in their desire to be off. 

“The horses won’t stand,” the Prince said, 
and he jumped in beside her and gave the order to 
go. Thus Tamara found herself alone with him 
fiying over the snow under the stars. 

There was a delicious feeling of excitement in 

162 


HIS HOUR 


her veins. They neither of them spoke for a while, 
but the Prince drew nearer and yet nearer, and 
presently his arm slipped round her, and he folded 
her close. 

“ Doushka,” he whispered. ‘‘ I hate the English- 
man — ^and life is so short. Let us taste it while 
we may,” and then he bent and kissed her lips! 

Tamara struggled against the intense intoxicat- 
ing emotion she was experiencing. What frightful 
tide was this which had swept into her well-ordered 
life! She vainly put up her arms and tried to 
push him away, but with each sign of revolt he 
held her the tighter. 

“Darling,” he said softly in her ear.^ ‘‘My 
little white soul. Do not fight, it is perfectly 
useless, because I will do what I wish. See, I 
will be gentle and just caress you, if you do not 
madden me by trying to resist!” 

Then he gathered her right into his arms, and 
again bent and most tenderly kissed her. All 
power of movement seemed to desert Tamara. 
She only knew that she was wildly happy, that 
this was heaven, and she would wish it never to end. 

She ceased struggling and closed her eyes, then 

163 


HIS HOUR 


he whispered all sorts of cooing love words in 
Russian and French, and rubbed his velvet eye- 
lids against her cheek, and every few seconds his 
lips would come to meet her lips. 

At last, when they had crossed the Troitzka 
bridge, he permitted her to release herself, and 
only held her hands under the furs, because dawn 
was breaking and they could be observed. 

But when they turned into the wide Serguief- 
skaia, which seemed deserted, he bent once more 
and this time with wildest passion he seemed to 
draw her very soul through her lips. 

Then ere she could speak, they drew up at the 
door, and he lifted her out, and before the Suisse 
and the waiting footmen. 

Good-night, Madame — ^sleep well,*^ he calmly 
said. 

But Tamara, trembling with mad emotion, 
rushed quickly to her room. 


CHAPTER XII 


I N life there comes sometimes a tidal wave 
in the ebb of which all old landmarks are 
washed out. And so it was with Tamara. 
She had fallen into bed half dead with fatigue 
and emotion, but when she woke the sickly gray 
light of a Russian winter mid-day pouring into 
her room, and saw her maid’s stolid face, back 
rushed the events of the night, and she drew in 
her breath with almost a hiss. Yes, nothing 
could ever be the same again. Leave me, 
Johnson,” she said, “I am too tired, I cannot 
get up yet.” 

And the respectful maid crept from the room. 
Then she lay back in her pillows and forced 
herself to face the position, and review what she 
had done, and what she must now do. 

First of all, she loved Gritzko, that she could 
no longer argue with herself about. Secondly, 
she was an English lady, and could not let herself 
be kissed by a man whose habit it was to play with 
165 


HIS HOUR 


whom he chose, and then pass on. She was free, 
and he was free, it followed his caressing then — 
divine as it had been — ^was an absolute insult. 
If he wanted her so much he should have asked 
her to marry him. He had not done so, therefore 
the only thing which remained for her to do, was 
to go away. The sooner the better. 

Then she thought of all the past. 

From the moment of the good-bye at the Sphinx 
it had been a humiliation for her. Always, always, 
he had been victor of the situation. Had she 
been ridiculously weak ? What was this fate 
which had fallen upon her? What had she done 
to draw such circumstances? Then even as she 
lay there, communing sternly with herself, a thrill 
swept over her, as her thoughts went back to 
that last passionate kiss. And her slender hands 
clenched under the clothes. 

‘Tf he really loved me,’’ she sighed, would 
face the uncertain happiness with him. I know 
now he causes me emotions of which I never 
dreamed and for which I would pay that price. 
But I have no single proof that he does really love 
me. He may be playing in the same way with 
166 


HIS HOUR 


Tatiane ShebanoflF — and the rest.” And at this 
picture her pride rose in wild revolt. 

Never, never! should he play with her again 
at least! 

Then she thought of all her stupid ways, per- 
haps if she had been different, not so hampered 
by prejudice, but natural like all these women 
here, perhaps she could have made him really love 
her. — ^Ah! — ^if so. 

This possibility, however, brought no comfort^ 
only increased regret. 

The first thing now to be done was to restrain 
herself in an iron control. To meet him casually. 
To announce to her godmother that she must go 
home, and as soon as the visit to Moscow should be 
over, she would return to England. She must not 
be too sudden, he would think she was afraid. 
She would be just stiff and polite and serene, 
and show him he was a matter of indifference 
to her, and that she had no intention to be trified 
with again! 

At last, aching in mind and body, she lay still. 
Meanwhile, below in the blue salon, the Princess 
Ardacheff was conversing with Stephen Strong. 
167 


HIS HOUR 


‘‘Yes, mon ami,” she was saying. “You must 
come — ^we go in a week — the day after my ball, 
to show Tamara Moscow, and from there to spend 
a night at Milaslav. Olga and Sonia and her hus- 
band and the Englishman, and Serge Grekoff 
and Valonne are coming, and it will be quite 
amusing.” 

“Think of the travelling and my old bones!” 
And Stephen Strong smiled. “But since it is 
your wish, dear Princess, of course I must come.” 

They were old and very intimate friends these 
two, and with him the Princess was accustomed 
to talk over most of her plans. 

He got up and lit a cigarette, then he walked 
across the room and came back again, while his 
hostess surveyed him with surprise. At last he 
sat down. 

“Vera, tell me the truth,” he said. “How are 
things going F I confess last night gave me qualms.” 

The Princess gazed at him inquiringly. 

“Why qualms?” 

“You see, Gritzko is quite an exceptional person, 
he is no type of a Russian or any other nation that 
one can reckon with, he is himself, and he has the 
168 


HIS HOUR 


most attractive magnetic personality a man could 
have.” 

‘‘Well, then?” 

“And if you knew the simple unsophisticated 
atmosphere in which your godchild has been 
brought up .” 

“Stephen, really,” — and the Princess tapped 
her foot impatiently. “Please speak out. Say 
what you mean.” 

“She is no more fitted to cope with him than a 
baby, that is what I mean.” 

“But why should she cope with him? Are not 
men tiresome!” and the Princess sighed. “Can’t 
you see I want them to love one another. It is 
just that — ^if she would not snub and resist him — 
all would be well.” 

“It did not look much like resistance last night,” 
said Stephen Strong. “And if Gritzko is only 
playing the fool, and means nothing serious, then 
I think it is a shame.” 

“You don’t suggest, surely, that I should inter- 
fere with fate ? ” 

“Only to the extent of not giving him unlimited 
opportunities. You remember that season in 
169 


HIS HOUR 


London — ^and your brother Alexis — ^and her mother, 
and what came of that!’’ 

The Princess put her hands up with a sudden 
gesture and covered her eyes. 

‘‘Oh! Stephen! how cruel of you to bring it back 
to me,” she said; “but this is quite different — 
they are free — and it is my dearest wish that Ta- 
mara and Gritzko should be united.” Then she 
continued in another tone. “I think you are 
quite wrong in any case. My plan is to throw 
them together as much as possible — ^he will see her 
real worth and delicate sweetness- — ^and they will 
get over their quarrelling. It is her reserve and 
resistance which drives him mad. Sometimes I 
do not know how he will act.” 

“ No, one can never count upon how he will act ! ” 
and Stephen Strong smiled. “But since you are 
satisfied I will say no more, only between you 
don’t break my gentle little countrywoman’s 
heart.” 

“You hurt me very much, Stephen ! ” the Princess 
said. “You — ^you — of all people, who know the 
tie there is between Tamara and me. You to sug- 
gest even that I would aid in breaking her heart.” 
170 


HIS HOUR 


‘‘Dear Vera, forgive me,” and he kissed her 
plump white hand. “I will suggest nothing, and 
will leave it all to you, but do not forget a man’s 
passions, and Gritzko, as we know, is not made 
of snow!” 

“You all misjudge him, my poor Gritzko,” the 
Princess said, hardly mollified. “He has the 
noblest nature underneath, but some day you 
will know.” 

It was late in the afternoon when Tamara 
appeared, to find a room full of guests having tea. 
Her mind was made up, and she had regained her 
calm. 

She would use the whole of her intelligence and 
play the game. She would be completely at ease 
and indifferent to Gritzko and would be incident- 
ally as nice as possible to Jack. And so get through 
the short time before she must go home. “For,” 
she had reasoned with herself sadly, “If he had 
loved me really he would never have behaved as 
he has done.” 

So when the Prince and Lord Courtray came in 
together presently, her greeting to both was natural- 
ness itself, and she took Jack off to a distant sofa 
12 171 


HIS HOUR 


with friendly familiarity, and conversed with him 
upon their home affairs. 

‘‘By Jove! you know, Tamara, you are awfully 
improved, my child,” Lord Courtray said, pres- 
ently. “You’ve acquired some kind of a look in 
your eye! If I wasn’t so taken with that darling 
little Countess Olga I should feel inclined to make 
love to you myself.” 

“You dear silly old Jack!” Tamara said. 

It was Lord Courtray’s fashion, when talking 
to any woman, even his own mother, to lean over 
her with rather a devoted look. And Tamara 
glancing up caught sight of Prince Milaslavski’s 
face. It wore an expression which almost filled her 
with fear. Of all things she must provoke no 
quarrel between him and dear old Jack, who was 
quite blameless in the affair. 

At the same time there was a consolation in the 
knowledge that she could make him feel. 

She thought it wiser soon to rise and return to 
the general group, while Jack, on his own amuse- 
ment bent, now took his leave. 

She sat down by Stephen Strong, she was in a 
most gracious mood it seemed. 

172 


HIS HOUR 


“You have heard of our excursion to Moscow, 
Mr. Strong,” she said. “The Princess says you 
must come too, I am looking forward to it 
immensely.” 

“We ought to have a most promising time in 
front of us,” that old cynic replied, while he puffed 
rings of smoke. “It all should be as full of adven- 
ture as an egg is full of meat!” 

“I have been reading up the guide books, so as 
to be thoroughly learned and teach Jack — ^he is 
so terribly ignorant always, worse than Tom!” and 
she laughed. 

“ We must try and see the whole show, and if the 
snow lasts, as it promises to do, we should have a 
delightful time.” 

“Gritzko,” Princess Ardacheff said. “How 
many versts is it from Moscow to Milaslav?” 

The Prince had been leaning on the mantlepiece 
without speaking for some moments, listening to 
Tamara’s conversation, but now he joined in, and 
sinking into a chair beside her, answered from there. 

“Thirty versts, Tantine — ^we shall go in troikas 
— but you must send your servants on the night 
before.” 


173 


HIS HOUR 


Then he turned to Tamara, who seemed wonder- 
fully absorbed, almost whispering to Stephen 
Strong. ‘‘Did you sleep well, Madame?” he said. 
There was an expression of mocking defiance in his 
glance, which angered Tamara. However, faithful 
to her resolutions, she kept herself calm. 

“Never better, thank you. Prince. It was a most 
interesting evening, and I am learning the customs 
of the country,” she said. “The thing which 
strikes me most is your wonderful chivalry to 
women — especially strange women.” 

They looked into one another’s eyes and meas- 
ured swords, and if she had known it she had 
never so deeply attracted him before. 

She had broached the subject of her return to 
England to her godmother, who had laughed the 
idea to scorn, but now she spoke to Gritzko as if it 
were an established fact. 

“I go home from Moscow, you know,” she said. 

“You find our country too cold?” he asked. 

“It is too full of contrasts, freezing one moment 
and thawing the next, and while outside one is 
turned to ice, indoors one is consumed with heat; 
it is upsetting to the equilibrium.” 

174 


HIS HOUR 


^^All the same, you will not go,” and he leaned 
back in the chair with his provoking lazy smile. 

‘‘Indeed, I shall.” 

“We shall see. There are a number of things 
for you to learn yet.” 

“What things ?” 

The Prince lit a cigarette. “The possibilities of 
the unknown fires you have lit,” he said. “You 
remember the night at the Sphinx, when we said 
good-bye. I told you a proverb they have there 
about meeting before dawn, and not parting until 
dawn. Well, that dawn has not arrived yet. And 
I have no intention — ^for the moment — ^that it shall 
arrive.” 

Tamara felt excited, and as ever his tone of 
complete omnipotence annoyed her. At the same 
time to see. him sitting there, his eyes fixed with 
deep interest on her face, thrilled and exalted her. 
Oh! she certainly loved him! Alas! and it would 
be dreadfully diflScult to say good-bye. But those 
three words in his sentence stung her pride — “for 
the moment.” Yes, there was always this hint of 
caprice. Always he gave her the sensation of 
instability, there was no way to hold him. She 
175 


HIS HOUR 


must ever guard her emotions and ever be ready 
to fence. 

And now that she had taken a resolve to go home, 
to linger no more, she was free to tease him as 
much as she could. To feel that she could, gave 
her a fillip, and added a fresh charm to her face. 

“You think you can rule the whole world to 
your will, Prince,” she said. 

“I can rule the part of it I want, as you will find,” 
he retorted fiercely. She made a pouting moue and 
tapped her little foot, then she laughed. 

“How amusing it would be if you happened to 
be mistaken this time,” she cooed. Then she 
rapidly turned to the Princess Sonia, who had just 
come in, and they all talked of the great ball which 
was to take place in the house in a week. The 
first after the period of the deep mourning. 

“We cannot yet wear colors, but whites and 
grays and mauves — ^and won’t it be a relief from 
all this black,” Princess Sonia said. 

When they had all gone and Tamara was dressing 
for dinner, she felt decidedly less depressed. She 
had succeeded better than she had hoped. She 
had contrived to outwit the Prince, when he had 
176 


HIS HOUR 


plainly shown his intention was to continue talk- 
ing to her, she had turned from one to another, 
and finally sat down by a handsome Chevalier 
Garde. In companies she had a chance, but 
when they were alone! — ^however, that was simple, 
because she must arrange that they should never 
be alone. 


CHAPTER XIII 


I T was perhaps a fortunate thing that for 
three days after this the Prince was kept at 
his military duties at Tsarskoi-Selo, and 
could not come to Petersburg, for he was in a mood 
that could easily mean mischief. Tamara also 
was inclined to take things in no docile spirit. 

She felt very unhappy, underneath her gay 
exterior. It was not agreeable to her self-respect 
to realize she was fleeing from a place because 
she loved a man whose actions showed he did 
not entertain the same degree of feeling for 
her. No amount of attention from any other quite 
salved that ever-constant inward hurt. 

She went often through strange moments. In 
the middle of a casual conversation suddenly back 
would come a wave of remembrance of the dawn 
drive in the troika, and she would actually quiver 
with physical emotion as the vivid recollection of 
the bliss of it would sweep over her. 

Then she would clench her hands and determine 

178 


HIS HOUR 


more fiercely than ever to banish such memories. 
But with all her will, hardly for ten minutes at a 
time could she keep Gritzko from her thoughts. 
His infiuence over her was growing into an 
obsession. 

She wondered why he did not come. She would 
not ask her godmother. The three days passed in 
a feverish, gnawing unrest; and on the third evening 
they went to the ballet again. 

Opposite them, in a box, a very dark young 
woman was seated. She had a hard, determined 
face, and she was well dressed, and not too covered 
with jewels. 

‘‘That is a celebrated lady,” Count Valonne 
said. “You must look at her, Madame Loraine; 
she was one of the best dancers at the ballet, and 
last year she tried to commit suicide in a charm- 
ingly dramatic way at one of Gritzko’s parties. 
She was at the time perhaps his chhre amie — one 
never knows, but in all cases violently in love with 
him — ^and is still, for the matter of that — or so it is 
said — ^and in the middle of rather a wild feast he 
was giving for her, she suddenly drank off some 
poison, after making the terrifying announcement 

179 


HIS HOUR 


of her intention ! We were all petrified with horror, 
but he remained quite calm, and, seizing her, he 
poured a whole bottle of salad oil down her throat, 
and then sent for a doctor! — Of course the poor 
lady recovered, and the romantic end was quite 
rate ! — She was perfectly furious, one heard — and 
married a rich slate merchant the week after. 
Wasn’t it like Gritzko? He said the affair was 
vulgar, and he sent her a large diamond bracelet, 
and never spoke to her again!” 

Tamara felt her cheeks burn — ^and her pride 
galled her more than ever. So she and the ex- 
dancer were in the same boat ? — ^but she at least 
would not try to commit suicide and be restored 
by — salad oil ! 

' ‘‘How perfectly ridiculous!” she said, with 
rather a bitter little laugh. “What complete 
bathos!” 

“It was unfortunate, was it not?” Valonne 
went on, and he glanced at Tamara sideways. 

He guessed that she was interested in the Prince; 
but Valonne was a charming creature with an 
understanding eye, and in their set was in great 
request. He knew exactly the right thing to talk 
180 


HIS HOUR 


about to each different person, as a perfect diplomat 
should, and he was too tactful and sympathetic to 
tease poor Tamara. On the contrary, he told her 
casually that Gritzko had been on some duty these 
three days, in case she did not know it. 

From the beginning Tamara always had liked 
Valonne. 

Then into the box came the same good-looking 
Chevalier Garde, Count Varishkine, whom she 
had talked to on the last occasion of Gritzko’s 
visit, and the spirit of hurt pride caused her to be 
most gracious with him. Meanwhile the Princess 
Ardacheff watched her with a faint sensation of 
uneasiness, and at last whispered to Stephen 
Strong : 

“Does not my godchild seem to be developing 
new characteristics, Stephen ? She is so very 
stately and quiet; and yet to-night it would almost 
seem she is being flirtatious with Boris Varishkine. 
— trust we shall have no complications. What 
do you think 

Mr. Strong laughed. 

“It will depend upon how much it angers 
Gritzko. It could come to mean anything — 
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HIS HOUR 


bloodshed, a scandal, or merely bringing things to a 
crisis between them. — ^Let us hope, for the latter.” 

“Indeed, yes” 

“You must remember, for an Englishwoman it 
would be very difficult to grasp all the possibilities 
in the character of Gritzko. We are not accustomed 
to these tempestuous headlong natures in our 
calm country.” 

“Fortunately Boris and Gritzko are very great 
friends.” 

“I never heard that the warmest friendship 
prevented jealousy between men,” Stephen Strong 
said, a little cynically — ^he had suffered a good 
deal in his youth. 

“I am delighted we are going to Moscow. There 
will be no Boris, and I shall arrange for my two 
children to be together as much as possible. I feel 
that is the surest way,” the Princess answered; and 
they talked of other things 

After the ballet was over the party went on to 
supper at Cubat’s in a private room, contrary to 
the Princess’ custom. But it was Stephen Strong’s 
entertainment, and he had no house to invite 
them to. 


182 


HIS HOUR 


As they passed down the passage to their salon 
the door of another opened as a waiter came 
out, and loud laughter and clatter of glass burst 
forth, and above the din one shrill girl’s treble 
screamed : 

‘"Gritzko! Oh, Gritzko!” 

The food nearly choked Tamara when they 
reached their room, and supper began. It was not, 
of course, a heinous crime for the Prince to be 
entertaining ladies of another world. But on the 
top of everything else it raised a wild revolt in her 
heart, and a raging disgust with herself. Never, 
never should she unbend to him again. She would 
not love him. 

Alas! for the impotency of human wills! Only 
the demonstrations of love can be controlled, the 
emotion itself comes from heaven — or hell, and is 
omnipotent. Poor Tamara might as well have 
determined to keep the sun from rising as to keep 
herself from loving Gritzko. 

She was quite aware that men — even the nicest 
men — ^like Jack and her brother Tom, sometimes 
went out with people she would not care to know; 
but to have the fact brought under her very 
183 


HIS HOUR 


observation disgusted her fine senses. To realize 
that the man she loved was at the moment perhaps 
kissing some ordinary woman, revolted and galled 
her immeasurably. But if she had known it this 
night, at least, the Prince was innocent. He had 
strolled into that room with some brother officers, 
and was not the giver of the feast. And a few 
minutes after Mr. Strong’s party had begun their 
repast he opened the door. 

‘"May I come in, Stephen ?” he asked. “I heard 
you were all here. Serge saw you. I have just 
arrived from Tsarskoi, and must eat.’^ 

And of course he was warmly welcomed and 
pressed to take a seat, while Valonne chaffed him 
in an undertone about the joys he had precipitately 
left. 

Tamara’s face was the picture of disdain. But 
the Prince sat beside her godmother, apparently 
unconcerned. He did not trouble to address her 
specially, and before the end of supper, in spite of 
rage and disgust and anger — ^and shame, she was 
longing for him to talk to her. 

The only consolation she had was once when 
they went out, as she looked up sweetly at Count 
184 


HIS HOUR 


Varishkine she caught a fierce expression stealing 
over Gritzko’s face. 

So even though he did not love her really he 
could still feel jealous; that was something, at all 
events ! 

Thus in these paltry rages and irritations, these 
two human beings passed the next three days — 
when their real souls were capable of something 
great. 

Prince Milaslavski, to every one’s surprise, 
appeared continuously in the world. 

Tamara and the Princess met him everywhere, 
and while the Princess did her best to throw them 
together, Tamara maneuvered so that not once 
could he speak to her alone, while she was assid- 
uously charming to every one else. Now it was 
old Prince Miklefski or Stephen Strong, now one 
of the husbands, or Jack, and just often enough 
to give things a zest she was bewitching to the 
handsome Chevalier Garde. 

And the strange, fierce light in Gritzko’s eyes 
did not decrease. 

The night before the Ardacheff ball they were 
going to a reception at one of the Embassies for a 
185 


HIS HOUR 


foreign King and Queen, who were paying a visit 
to the Court, and Tamara dressed with unusual 
care, and fastened her high tiara in her soft brown 
hair. 

The Prince should see her especially attractive, 
she thought. 

But when they arrived at the great house and 
walked among the brilliant throng no Prince was 
to be seen! — ^It might be he had no intention to 
come. 

Presently Tamara went off to the refreshment 
room with her friend Valonne. 

The conversation turned to Grit2:ko with an easy 
swing. 

He seemed on the brink of one of his maddest 
fits. Valonne had seen him in the club just before 
dinner. 

‘Tf you really go to England I think he will 
follow you, Madame,” he said. 

“ How ridiculous !” and Tamara laughed. How 
can it make a difference to him whether I go or no ? 
We do not exist for one another,” and she fanned 
herself rather rapidly, while Valonne smiled a 
fine smile. 


186 


HIS HOUR 


‘‘I should not be quite sure of that,” he said. 

I might predict, I should say you will be lucky 
if you get away from here without being the cause 
of a duel of some sort.” 

‘‘A duel!” Tamara was startled. ‘‘How dread- 
ful, and how silly! But why? I thought dueling 
had quite gone out in all civilized countries; and 
in any case, why fight about me ? And who should 
fight? Surely you are only teasing me, Count 
Valonne.” 

“Duels are real facts here, I am afraid,” he said. 
“ Gritzko has already engaged in two of them. He 
is not quarrelsome, but just never permits any 
one to cross his wishes or interfere with his 
game.” 

“But what is his game? You speak as though 
it were some kind of cards or plot. What do you 
mean ?” and Tamara, with heightened color, 
lifted her head. 

“The game of Gritzko?” and Count Valonne 
laughed. “Frankly, I think he is very much in love 
with you, Madame,” he said. “So by that you 
can guess what would be any man’s game.” 

“You have a vivid imagination, and are talking 
13 187 


HIS HOUR 


perfect nonsense/^ Tamara laughed nervously. 
“I refuse to be the least upset by such ideas!” 

At the moment up came Count Boris Varishkine, 
and after a while she went oflF with him to a sofa 
by the window, and there was seated in deep con- 
verse when the Prince came in. 

He looked at them for a second and then made 
straight for the Princess Ardacheff, who was just 
about to arrange her rubber of bridge. 

“Tantine, I want to talk to you,” he said. 

And the Princess at once left the cardroom and 
returned with him. They found a quiet corner 
opposite Tamara and her Garde, and there sat 
down 

“Tantine, I brought you here to look over there. 
— ^What does that mean ? ” 

The Princess put up her glasses to gain time. 

“Nothing, dear boy. Tamara is merely amusing 
herself like all the rest of us at a party. Are you 
jealous, Gritzko ? ” she asked. 

He looked at her sharply, and for a moment 
unconsciously fingered the dagger in his belt. 

“ Yes, I believe I am jealous. I am not at all sure 
that I do not love your charming friend,” he said. 

188 


HIS HOUR 


‘‘Well, why don’t you marry her then?” sug- 
gested the Princess. 

“Perhaps I shall — she does not drive me to 
doing something mad first. I don’t know what I 
intend. It may be to go off to the Caucasus, or to 
stay and make her love me so deeply that she will 
forgive me — ^no matter what I do.” 

He paused a moment, and his great eyes filled 
with mist, and then the wild light grew. 

“If ever she becomes my Princess, she shall 
be entirely for me. I will not let her have a look 
or thought for any other man. All must be mine — 
unshared, and then she shall be my queen.” 

Princess Ardacheff leant back and looked at 
him. He was in his blue uniform with the scarlet 
underdress; and even she — old woman and fond 
friend — could not help picturing the gorgeous 
joy such a fate would give — ^to have him for a lover! 
to see his fierce, proud head bent in devotion, 
to feel his tender caress. Tamara must be an 
unutterable fool if she should hesitate. 

But what he had said was not reassuring in 
its prospect of calm. She felt she must put in 
some small word of admonition. 

189 


HIS HOUR 


‘‘You will be careful won’t you, Gritzko?” 
she ventured to suggest. “Remember, Tamara 
is an Englishwoman, and not accustomed to your 
ways.” 

“It will depend upon herself,” he said. “If 
she goes on teasing me I do not know what I shall 
do. If she does not ” 

“You will be good?” 

“Possibly. But one thing, Tantine, I will not 
be interfered with either by her friend the English- 
man or Boris Varishkine.” 

At this moment Tamara looked up and caught 
the two pairs of eyes fixed upon her. And into 
her spirit fiowed a devilment. — ^Duels! They 
were all nonsense. She should certainly play a 
little with her new friend. 

In her whole life before she came to Russia she 
had never been really flirtatious. She was in no 
way a coquette, rather a simple creature who 
recked little of men. But the simplest woman 
develops feline qualities under certain provoca- 
tion; and her pride was deeply hurt. 

Count Boris Varishkine asked nothing better 
than to fall in with her views. He was, however, 
190 


HIS HOUR 


like most of his countrymen, sincere, and not merely 
passing the time. 

Jack Courtray came up, too, and joined them, 
his Countess Olga had sent him temporarily from 
her side. And Tamara scintillated and sparkled 
as she talked to them both in a way which sur- 
prised herself. 

This society was very diplomatic, and it amused 
her to watch the representatives of the different 
nations — ^the English and the Russians standing 
out as so much the finest men. 

Presently the little group was joined by Stephen 
Strong. 

‘Tsn’t this an amusing party, Mrs. Loraine?” 
he said. 

“Yes,” said Tamara. “And I am beginning 
to be able to place the members of the different 
countries. Don’t you think the Russians look 
much the most like us, Mr. Strong?” 

“The Russians, dear lady? When you have 
traveled a little more you will see that term covers 
half the types of the earth — ^but I agree. What 
we see here in Petersburg are very much like us — 
a trifling difference in the way the eyes are set, 
191 


HIS HOUR 


and the way the hair is brushed; and, given the 
same uniforms, half these smart young men might 
be our English Guards.” 

‘'We do not resemble you in character, though,” 
said Count Varishkine. “You can feel just what 
you like, or not at all, whereas we are storm-tossed, 
and have not yet learnt the arts of pretence.” 

“We’re a deuced cold-blooded race, aren’t 
we, Tamara ” J ack Courtray said, and he grinned 
his happy grin. 

The little party looked so merry and content 
Princess Ardacheff hardly liked to disturb them, 
but was impelled to by a look in Gritzko’s face. 

“Tamara, dear,” she said, as she joined them, 
“I am so very tired after last night, for once shall 
we go home reasonably early ? ” 

And Tamara rose gladly to her feet. 

“Of course, Marraine, I too am dropping with 
fatigue,” she said. 

The Prince spoke a few words to Stephen Strong, 
and Jack joined in; so that the three were a pace 
or so to one side when the two ladies wished them 
good-night. 

“Come and see me early to-morrow. Jack,” 

192 


HIS HOUR 


Tamara said. ‘T want to show you Tom’s letter 
from home,” and she looked up with an alluring 
smile, feeling the Prince was watching her; then, 
turning to Count Boris, ‘T am sure you will re- 
gret your bargain in having asked me to dance the 
Mazurka to-morrow night,” she said. “ I do not 
know a single figure or a step — ^but I hope we shall 
have some fun. I am looking forward to it.” 

‘‘More than fun!” the young man said, with 
devotion, as he kissed her hand. 

Then they walked to say good-night to the hostess, 
and Gritzko seemed to disappear. But when they 
got down into the hall they saw him already in 
his furs. 

The Princess’ footman began to hand Tamara 
her snow-boots and cloak, but Gritzko almost 
snatched them from the man’s hand. She made 
no protest, but let him help her to put them on and 
wrap her up, while her godmother thought it 
advisable to walk toward the door. 

“To-night was your moment, Madame,” he 
said, in a low voice. “But the gods are often 
kind to me, and my hour will come!” 

Tamara summoned everything she knew of 

193 


HIS HOUR 


provokingness into her face as she looked up and 
answered : 

“Tant pis! et bon soir! Monsieur le demon 
de Lermontoff 

Then she felt it prudent to run quickly after the 
Princess and get into the automobile! 


CHAPTER XIV 


I T was twenty-four hours later. The night 
of the Ardacheff ball had come. The 
glorious house made the background of a 
festive scene. The company waited all round the 
galleries for the arrival of the Grand Dukes and 
the foreign King and Queen. 

And Tamara stood by her godmother’s side at 
the top of the stairs, a strange excitement flooding 
her veins. 

Since the night before they had heard nothing 
of the Prince. And as each guest came in view, 
past the splendid footmen grouped like statues on 
every six steps, both women watched with quicken- 
ing pulses for one insouciant Cossack face. 

The Royalties arrived in a gorgeous train, and 
yet neither Gritzko nor Count Varishkine. 

It might mean nothing, but it was curious all 
the same. The opening contre-danse was in full 
swing, and still they never came, and by the time 
of the second valse after it Tamara was a prey to 
195 


HIS HOUR 


a vague fear. While the Princess’ uneasiness 
grew more than vague. 

Tamara could not enjoy herself. She talked 
at random, she made her partners continually 
promenade through the salons, and her eyes con- 
stantly scanned the doors. 

The immense ballroom, quite two stories high, 
presented a brilliant sight with its stately decora- 
tions of the time of Alexander I. And all the 
magnificent jewels and uniforms, and the flowers. 
Somehow a riot of roses takes an extra charm 
when outside the thermometer measures zero. 
And no one would have believed, looking at this 
dignified throng, that they could be the same 
people who could frolic wildly at a Bohemian 
supper. 

There is a great deal in breeding, after all, and 
the knowledge of the fitness of things which fol- 
lows in its train. 

Tamara was valsing with Jack Courtray, and 
they stopped to look at the world. 

‘‘Are they not a wonderful people. Jack? 
Could anything be more decorous and dignified 
than they are to-night ? And yet if you watch, in 
196 


HIS HOUR 


the contre-danse their eyes have the same excited 
look as when we wildly capered after supper in 
Prince Milaslavski’s house.” 

‘‘Which reminds me — ^why is he not here?” 
asked Jack. 

“I wish I knew,” Tamara said. “Jack, be a 
dear and go and forage about and get hold of 
Serge Grekoff, if you can see him, or Mr. 
Strong, or Sasha Basmanoff, or some one who 
might know — but it seems as if none of them are 
here.” 

“As interested as that?” and Lord Courtray 
laughed. “Well, my child. I’ll do my best,” so 
he relinquished her for the next turn and left her 
with Valonne, who had just arrived. 

“Apparently I shall have to go partnerless for 
the Mazurka,” Tamara carelessly said while she 
watched the Frenchman’s face with the corner of 
her eye. “I was engaged for it to Count Varish- 
kine, and he has never turned up. I do wonder 
what has happened to him. Do you know?” 

“I told you you would be lucky if you got away 
from here without some row of sorts, Madame,” 
and Valonne smiled enigmatically. 

197 


HIS HOUR 


‘‘What do you mean? Please tell me?’^ and 
Tamara turned pale. 

‘T mean nothing; only I fancy you will only see 
one of them to-night; which it will be is still on 
the cards.” 

A cold, sick feeling came over Tamara. 

“You are not insinuating that they have been 
fighting?” she asked, with a tremble in her voice 
which she could not control. 

But Valonne reassured her. 

“I am insinuating nothing,” he said, with a 
calm smile. “Let us have one more turn before 
this charming valse stops.’^ 

And, limp and nerveles^ Tamara allowed her- 
self to be whirled around the room; nor could 
she get anything further out of Valonne. 

When it was over she sought in vain for her god- 
mother or Jack or Stephen Strong. The Princess 
was engaged with the Royalties and could not be 
approached, and neither of the men were to be seen. 

The next half-hour was agony, in which, with 
a white face and fixed smile, Tamara played her 
part, and then just before the Mazurka was going 
to begin Gritzko came in. 

198 


HIS HOUR 


It seemed as if her knees gave way under her 
for a moment, and she sat down in a seat. The 
relief was so great. Whatever had happened he 
at least was safe. 

She watched him securing two chairs in the best 
place, and then he crossed over to where she sat 
by the door to the refreshment room. 

‘"Bon soir, Madame,” he said. “Will you take 
me as a substitute for your partner. Count Varish- 
kine?” and he bowed with a courtly grace which 
seemed suited to the scene. “He is, I regret to 
say, slightly indisposed, and has asked me to crave 
your indulgence for him, and let me fill his place.” 

For a moment Tamara hesitated; she seemed 
to have lost the power of speech; she felt she must 
control her anxiety and curiosity, so at last she 
answered gravely: 

“I am so very sorry! I hope it is nothing seri- 
ous. He is so charming. Count Varishkine.” 

“Nothing serious. Shall we take our places? 
I have two chairs there not far from Olga and your 
friend,” and the Prince prepared to lead the way. 

Tamara, now that the tension was over, almost 
thought she would refuse, but the great relief and 
199 


HIS HOUR 


joy she felt in his presence overcame her pride, 
and she meekly followed him across the room. 

They passed the Princess on the way, and as 
she apparently gave some laughing reply to the 
Ambassador she was with, she hurriedly whispered 
in Tamara’s ear: 

“Pour Tamour de Dieu ! Be careful with Gritzko 
to-night, my child.” 

When they were seated waiting for the dance 
to begin Tamara noticed that the Prince was very 
pale, and that his eyes, circled with blue shadows, 
seemed to flame. 

The certainty grew upon her that some mysteri- 
ous tragic thing had taken place; but, frightened 
by the Princess’ words, she did not question him. 

She hardly spoke, and he was silent, too. It 
seemed as though now he had gained his end and 
secured her as a partner it was all he meant to do. 

Presently he turned to her and asked lazily: 

“Have you been amused since the Moravian 
reception? How have you passed the time? I 
have been at Tsarskoi again, and could not come 
to see Tantine.” 

“We have been quite happy, thanks. Prince,” 

200 


HIS HOUR 


Tamara said. “Jack Courtray and I have spent 
the day studying the lovely things in the Hermitage. 
We must see what we can before we both go home.” 

Gritzko looked at her. 

“I like him — ^he is a good fellow — your friend,” 
and then he added reflectively: “But if he spends 
too much time with you I hope the bears will eat 
him!” 

This charitable wish was delivered in a grave, 
quiet voice, as though it had been a blessing. 

“How horrible you are!” Tamara flashed. 
“Jack to be eaten by bears! Poor dear old Jack! 
What has he done?” 

“Nothing, I hope, — ^as yet; but time will tell. 
Now we must begin to dance.” 

And they rose, called to the center by the Master 
of the Ceremonies to assist in a figure. 

While the Prince was doing his part she noticed 
his movements seemed languid and not full of his 
usual wild entrain, and her feeling of unease and 
dread of she knew not what increased. 

Tamara was very popular, and was hardly left 
for a moment on her chair when the flower figures 
began, so their conversations were disjointed, and 
201 


HIS HOUR 


at last almost ceased, and unconsciously a stiff 
silence grew up between them, caused, if she had 
known it, on his side, by severe physical pain. 

She was surprised that he handed all his flowers 
to her but did not ask her to dance, nor did he rise 
to seek any other woman. He just sat still, though 
presently, when magnificent red roses were brought 
in in a huge trophy, and Serge Grekoff was seen 
advancing with a sheaf of them to claim Tamara, 
he suddenly asked her to have a turn, and got up 
to begin. 

She placed her hand on his arm, and she noticed 
he drew in his breath sharply and winced in the 
slightest degree. But when she asked him if 
something hurt him, and what it was, he only 
laughed and said he was well, and they must dance; 
so away they whirled. 

A feverish anxiety and excitement convulsed 
Tamara. What in heaven’s name had occurred? 

When they had finished and were seated again 
she plucked up courage to ask him: 

‘‘Prince, I feel sure Count Varishkine is not 
really ill. Something has happened. Tell me 
what it is.” 


202 


HIS HOUR 


‘‘I never intended you to dance the Mazurka 
with him,” was all Gritzko said. 

“And how have you prevented it?” Tamara 
asked, and grew pale to her lips. 

“What does it matter to you?” he said. “Are 
you nervous about Boris ?” 

And now he turned and fully looked at her, 
and she was deeply moved by the expression in 
his face. 

He was suffering extremely, she could distin- 
guish that, but underneath the pain there was a 
wild triumph, too. Her whole being was wrung. 
Love and fear and solicitude, and, yes, rebellion 
also had its place. And at last she said: 

“I am nervous, not for Count Varishkine, but 
for what you may have done.” 

He leaned back and laughed with almost his 
old irresponsible mirth. 

“I can take care of my own deeds, thanks, 
Madame,” he said. 

And then anger rose in Tamara beyond sym- 
pathy for pain. 

She sat silent, staring in front of her, the strain 
of the evening was beginning to tell. She hardly 
14 203 


HIS HOUR 


knew what he said, or she said, until the Mazurka 
was at an end, all the impression it left with her 
was one of tension and fear. Then the polonaise 
formed, and they went in to supper. 

Here they were soon seated next their own 
special friends, and Gritzko seemed to throw off 
all restraint. He drank a great deal, and then 
poured out a glass of brandy and mixed it with 
the champagne. 

He had never been more brilliant, and kept the 
table in a roar, while much of his conversation was 
addressed to Tatiane Sh^banoff, who sat on his 
left hand. 

Tamara appeared as though she were turned 
into stone. 

And so the night wore on. It was now four 
o’clock in the morning. The company all went to 
the galleries again to watch the departure of the 
King and Queen. And, leaning on the marble 
balustrade next the Prince, Tamara suddenly 
noticed a thin crimson stream trickle from under 
his sleeve to his glove. 

He saw it, too, and with an impatient exclamation 
of annoyance he moved back and disappeared in 

204 


HIS HOUR 


the crowd. The rest of the ball for Tamara was a 
ghastly blank, although they kept it up with 
immense spirit until very late. 

She seemed unable to get near the Princess, she 
was always surrounded, and when at last she did 
come upon her in deep converse with Valonne. 

“Tamara, dear,” she said, ‘‘you must be so 
dreadfully tired. Slip off to bed. They will go on 
until daylight,” and there was something in her 
face which prevented any questions. 

So, cold and sick with apprehension, poor 
Tamara crept to her room, and, dismissing her 
weary maid, sat and rocked herself over her fire. 

What horrible thing had occurred ? 

What was the meaning of that thin stream of 
blood ? 


CHAPTER XV 


AMARA and her godmother did not meet 
M until nearly lunch-time next day. A 
little before that meal the Princess came 
into her room. Tamara was still in bed, perfectly 
exhausted with the strain of the night. The Prin- 
cess wore an anxious look of care, as she walked 
from the window to the dressing table and then 
back again. Finally she sat down and took up a 
glove which was lying on a cushion near. 

“Tamara, you saw I talked last night with 
Valonne, and this morning I sent for Serge Grekoff , 
but he would not come, so I got Valonne again.’’ 
She paused an instant. “I was extremely worried 
last night about Gritzko. I dare say you were not 

to blame, dear, but ” 

“Please tell me, Marraine,” and poor Tamara 
sat up and pushed her hair back. 

“It appears, as far at I can gather, they all dined 
at the Fontonka house — ^Boris Varishkine and 
Gritzko have always been great friends — ^and at 
200 


HIS HOUR 


the end of dinner — Valonne imagines, because no 
one is sure what took place between them at this 
stage — Gritzko, it is supposed, said to Boris in 
quite an amiable way that he did not wish him to 
dance the Mazurka with you, but to relinquish his 
right in his — Gritzko’s — ^favor.” 

She paused again, and Tamara’s eyes fixed 
themselves in fascinated fear on her face. The 
Princess, after smoothing out the glove in her hand 
with a nervous energy, went on: 

“They had all had quite enough champagne, 
of course, and apparently Boris refused, and 
suggested that they should toss up, and whoever 
won the toss should have first shot in the dark.” 

“Yes,” said Tamara faintly. 

“You know, dear, our boys are often very wild, 
and they have a game they play when they are at 
the end of their tether for something to do when 
quartered in some hopeless outpost — a kind of 
blind-man’s-buff — only it is all in the dark, and the 
blind man stands in the middle of the room and the 
rest clap hands and then dodge, and he fires his 
revolver at the point the sound seems to come from, 
and the object is not to get shot. You may have 
207 


HIS HOUR 


noticed Sasha Basmanoff has no left thumb? He 
lost it last year on just such a night.” 

‘‘Oh! Marraine, how dreadful!” Tamara said. 

“It is perhaps not a very civilized game,” the 
Princess continued,” but we are not discussing 
that, I am telling you what occurred. Well, from 
this point Valonne and the rest were eyewitnesses. 
Gritzko and Boris, still laughing in rather a strained 
way, said they had some slight difference of opinion 
to settle, and had decided to do it in the ballroom, 
in the dark. I won’t go into details of how many 
steps to the right or left, the impromptu seconds 
arranged, only it was settled when Sasha at one 
end and Serge at the other should shut the doors 
they should both fire, and if in three times neither 
was shot, both should give up their claim.” 

“It is too horrible! and for such a trifle,” Tamara 
said, clutching the bedclothes, and the Princess 
went on. 

“Valonne said they were both hit in the first 
round, and all the company burst into the room. 
Nothing seemed very serious, and they laughed 
and shook hands. So Valonne left to be in time 
for the ball, but this morning, he told me, he found 
208 


HIS HOUR 


Boris Varishkine had had a shoulder wound which 
bled very badly and quite prevented his coming, 
while Gritzko was shot through the flesh of the 
right arm, and as soon as they could bind it up 
decently, as you know, he came on.” 

Tamara’s face was as white as her pillow. She 
clasped her hands with a movement of anguish. 

‘‘Oh! Marraine, I am too unhappy,” she wailed. 
“Indeed, indeed, I did nothing to cause this. You 
heard me, I only said to Count Varishkine I was 
looking forward to the dance. He is impossible, 
Gritzko. Oh! let me go home!” 

“Alas! my child, what would be the good of 
that? If you went off to-night instead of coming 
to Moscow, it might create a talk; what we want is 
to prevent a scandal, to hush everything up. None 
of these men will tell, and your name will not be 
dragged into it. And if we go on our trip amicably 
as was arranged it will discountenance rumor. 
Gritzko and Boris are quite friends again. And if 
anything about the shooting does leak out, if no 
one has further cause for connecting you with it, 
they will generally think it merely one of Gritzko’s 
mad parties. For heaven’s sake let it all blow over, 

209 


HIS HOUR 


and after Moscow and a reasonable time, not to 
appear too hurried, you shall go home.’’ 

‘‘But meanwhile, how can I know that he won’t 
shoot at Jack? or do some other awful thing! He 
does not love me really a bit, Marraine. It is all 
out of pride and devilment because he wants to win 
and conquer me and add me to his scalps, and I 
won’t be conquered. I tell you I won’t!” and 
Tamara clenched her hands. 

The Princess did not know what to say, she was 
not perfectly sure in her own mind as to Gritzko’s 
feelings, and she was too thoroughly acquainted 
with his ways to hazard any theory as to his possible 
acts. She felt it might not be fair to assure her 
godchild that he truly loved her. She could only 
think of tiding over matters for the time being. 

“Tamara, dearest, could you at least try to keep 
the peace on our trip?” she asked. “Be gentle 
with him, and do not excite him in any way.” 

Tamara buried her face in her pillows, she was 
too English to be dramatic and sob; but when she 
spoke her soft voice trembled a little and her eyes 
glistened with tears. 

“He is horribly cruel, Marraine,” she said. 

210 


HIS HOUR 


“Why should he treat me as he does. I won’t — 
won’t bear it.” 

The Princess sighed. 

“Tamara, forgive me for asking you, but I must, 
I feel I must. Do you — ^love him, child ?” 

Then passion flamed up in Tamara’s white face, 
her secret was her own, and she would defend it 
even from this kind friend — so — ^“I believe I hate 
him!” she said. 

After a while the Princess left her, they having 
come to the agreement that Tamara should do all 
that she could to keep the peace; but when she was 
alone she decided to speak to Gritzko as little as 
possible herself, and to ignore him completely. 
There would be no Boris and no one to make him 
jealous. She would occupy herself with Stephen 
Strong, and the sight-seeing, and even Sonia’s 
husband, who was a bore and old, too; but the 
prospect held out no charms for her. She knew 
that she loved him deeply — ^this wild, fierce Gritzko 
— ^more deeply than ever to-day, and the tears, one 
after another, trickled down her pale cheeks. 

If there was not a chance of any happiness, at 
least she must go home keeping some rag of self- 
211 


HIS HOUR 


respect. She firmly determined that he should not 
see the slightest feeling on her side, it should be 
restrained or perhaps capricious even, as his own. 

Their train for Moscow started at nine o’clock, 
and the whole party had arranged to dine at the 
Ardacheff house at seven and then go to the 
station. 

Nothing of the scandal of the night seemed to 
have transpired, for no one even hinted at anything 
about it. 

Gritzko was still very pale, but appeared none 
the worse, and the atmosphere seemed to have 
resumed a peaceful note. 

The five sleeping compartments reserved for 
this party of ten were all in a row in one carriage, 
and Tamara and the Princess, on the plea of 
fatigue, immediately retired to their berths for the 
night, Tamara not having addressed a single direct 
word to Gritzko. So far, so well. But when 
she was comfortably tucked into the top berth, 
and an hour or so later was just falling off to 
sleep, he knocked at the door, and the Princess 
believing it to be the ticket-collector opened it, and 
he put his head in. The shade was drawn over 
212 


HIS HOUR 


the lamp and the compartment was in a blue 
gloom. Tamara was startled by hearing her 
godmother say: 

‘‘ Gritzko! Thou! What do you want, dear boy, 
disturbing us like this 

“I came to ask you to tie up my arm,” he said. 
‘T was practising with a pistol yesterday, and it 
went off and the bullet grazed the skin, and the 
damned thing has begun bleeding again. I know 
you are a trained nurse, Tantine. Serge, who is 
with me, has tried and made a ridiculous mess of 
it, so I brought the bandage to you.” 

He now pulled back the shade and they saw he 
was standing there quite sans gene in the same 
kind of blue silk pyjamas Tamara remembered 
to have seen once before, and his eyes, far from 
being tragic or serious, had the naughtiest, most 
mischievous twinkle in them, while he whispered 
to the Princess and enlisted her sympathy for his 
pain. 

‘‘Gritzko, dearest child, but you are suffering! 
But let me see ! only wait in the passage until I have 
my dressing-gown, and then come in again.” 

Tamara now thought it prudent to crouch down 

213 


HIS HOUR 


in the clothes and pretend to be asleep, while the 
kind Princess got up and arranged herself. 

Then with a gentle tap this poor wounded one 
came in. 

Tamara was conscious that her godmother was 
murmuring horrified and affectionate solicitations, 
as she busily set to work. She was also conscious 
that Gritzko was standing with his shoulder leant 
against her berth. He was so tall he could look at 
her, in spite of her retirement to the farthest side, 
and she was horribly conscious of the magnetic 
power exercised by his eyes. She longed quite to 
open hers, she longed really to look. She felt so 
nervous she almost gave a silly little laugh, but her 
will won, and her long eyelashes remained resting 
on her cheek. 

‘‘You darling. You are doing it beautifully!’^ 
he presently said, and then more softly, “I had no 
idea how pretty your friend is! and how soundly 
she sleeps I Do you think I might kiss her, Tantine ? 
I have always wanted to, only she is of such a sever- 
ity I have been too frightened. May I, Tantine.?” 
And his voice sounded coaxing and sweet, and 
Tamara felt sure he was caressing the Princess’ 
214 


HIS HOUR 


hair with his free hand, for that lady kept murmur- 
ing. 

“Tais toi! — Gritzko — ^have done! How can I 
bind your arm if you conduct yourself so! Not a 
moment of stillness! Truly what a naughty child 
— ^keep still!” Then she spoke more severely to 
him in Russian, and he laughed while he answered, 
and then presently the bandage was done, and 
standing on tip-toe he looked full at Tamara. 

“And you think I must not kiss her? Oh! you 
are a most cruel Tantine! She is sound asleep and 
would never know, and it would be just one of the 
things which could cool my fever and help my 
arm.” 

But the Princess interposed, sternly, and getting 
really annoyed with him, he was forced to go. But 
first he kissed her hand and thanked her and purred 
affection and gratitude with his astonishing charm, 
and the Princess’ voice grew more and more 
mollified as she said: “There — ^there — ^what a boy! 
Gritzko, dear child, begone!” 

And all this while, with her long eyelashes resting 
upon her cheek, Tamara apparently slept peace- 
fully on. 


215 


HIS HOUR 


But when the door was safely shut and bolted, 
the Princess addressed her. 

“You are not really asleep, Tamara, I suppose,’^ 
she said. “You have heard? Is he not difficult. 
What is one to do with him ? I can never remain 
angry long. Those caresses! Mon Dieu! I wish 
you would love each other and marry and go and 
live at Milaslav, and then we others might have a 
little peace and calm!” 

“Marry him,” and Tamara raised herself in 
bed. “One might as well marry a panther in a 
jungle, it would be quite as safe!” she said. 

But the Princess shook her head. “There you 
are altogether wrong,” she replied. “Once there 
were no continuous obstacles to his will, he would 
be gentle and adoring, he would be as tender and 
thoughtful as he is to me when I am ill.” 

Then into Tamara’s brain there rushed visions 
of the unutterable pleasure this tenderness would 
mean, and she said: 

“Don’t let us talk; — ^I want to sleep, Marraine.” 

And in the morning they arrived at Moscow. 


CHAPTER XVI 


whole day of the sight-seeing passed 
ft ft with comparative smoothness, Tamara 
persistently remained with Sonia’s hus- 
band or Stephen Strong, when any moment came 
that she should be alone with any man. 

She was apparently indifferent to Gritzko, 
— considering that she was throbbing with interest 
in his every movement and inwardly longing to 
talk to him — she kept up the role she had set herself 
to play very well. It was not an agreeable one, 
and but for the inward feverish excitement she 
would have suffered much pain. 

Gritzko for his part seemed whimsically in- 
different for most of the time, but once now and 
then the Princess, who watched things as the 
god in the car, experienced a sense of uneasiness. 
And yet she could not suggest any other line of 
conduct for Tamara to pursue. But on the whole 
the day was a success. 

The two young English guests had both been 

217 


HIS HOUR 


extremely interested in what they saw. Stephen 
Strong was an old hand and knew it intimately, 
and the whole party was so merry and gay. The 
snow fortunately had held, and they rushed about 
in little sleighs seeing the quaint buildings and 
picturesque streets and the churches with their 
bright gilt domes. Moscow was really Russian, 
Prince Solentzeff-Zasiekin told them, unlike Peters- 
burg, which at a first glance might be Berlin or 
Vienna, or anywhere else; but Moscow is like no 
other city in the world. 

“How extremely good you Russians must be,” 
Tamara said. “The quantities of churches you 
have, and everywhere the people seem so devout. 
Look at them kissing that Ikon in the street ! Such 
faith is beautiful to see.” 

“Our faith is our safeguard,” her companion 
said. “When the people become sufiiciently edu- 
cated to have doubts then, indeed, a sad day will 
come.” 

“They have such grave patient faces, don’t 
you think?” said Stephen Strong. “It is not 
exactly a hopeless expression, it is more one of 
resignation. Whenever I come here I feel of what 
218 


HIS HOUR 


use is strife, and yet after a while they make one 
melancholy.” 

They were waiting by the house of the RomanoiEFs, 
for their guide to open the door, and just then a 
batch of beggars passed, their wild hair and terribly 
ragged sheepskins making them a queer gruesome 
sight. They craved alms with the same patient 
smile with which they thanked when money was 
given. Misery seemed to stalk about a good 
deal. 

‘‘How could ^great family have lived in this tiny 
house?” Tamara asked. “Really, people in olden 
times seem to have been able to double up any- 
where. Pray look at this bedroom and this ridicu- 
lous bed!” 

“It will prepare you for what you are coming 
to at Milaslav,” Gritzko said. “A row of tent 
stretchers for everyone together in the hall ! ” 

Tamara made no answer, she contrived to move 
on directly he spoke, and her reply now was to 
the general company, as it had been all day. 

If she had looked back then she would have 
seen a gleam in his eyes which boded no peace. 
She thought she was doing everything for the best, 
15 219 


HIS HOUR 


but each rebuff was adding fuel to that wild fire 
in his blood. 

By the end of the day, after walks through the 
Treasury and museums, and what not, and never 
having been able to speak to Tamara, his temper 
was at boiling point. But he controlled it, and 
his face wore a mask, which disarmed even the 
Princess’ fears. 

Their dinner was very gay, and the Russians 
asked Lord Courtray what had impressed him most. 

‘T like the story of Ivan the Terrible putting 
his jolly old alpenstock through the fellow’s foot 
on the stairs when he came with the letter,” Jack 
said. ‘‘Sensible sort of thing to do. Kept the 
messenger in place.” 

Meanwhile Tamara was conversing in a lower 
voice with Stephen Strong. 

“The more you stay in this country, the more 
it fascinates you,” he said. “And you feel you 
have got back to some of the fierce primitive pas- 
sions of nature. Here, in Moscow, the whole 
earth must be stained with wild orgies and blood, 
and yet they are full of poetry and romance. Even 
Ivan the Terrible had his religious side, and every 
220 


HIS HOUR 


creature of them believes in the saints and the 
priests. It is said the impostor who posed as Ivan’s 
son might have succeeded had he not been too 
kind, he showed clemency to Shuisky and his 
enemies and did not have them torn to pieces, so the 
people would not believe he could be the Terrible’s 
son! And they chased him to that window you 
remember we saw in the old palace of the Kremlin 
and there he had to throw himself out.” 

‘Tt makes one wonder what can arise from a 
history of such horrible crimes,” Tamara said. 

“You must not forget that the country is prac- 
tically three hundred years behind the times, 
though,” Stephen Strong went on. “No doubt 
quite as great horrors marked others if we look at 
them at an equivalent stage of development. It is 
missing this point which makes most strangers, 
and many foreign historians, so unjust to Russia 
and her people. The national qualities are im- 
measurably great, but as a civilized nation they are 
so very young.” 

“I believe one could grow to love them,” Tamara 
said. “I have never had the feeling that I am 
among strangers since I have been here.” 

221 


HIS HOUR 


Then she wondered vaguely why Stephen Strong 
smiled softly to himself. 

By the end of dinner, Gritzko’s eyes were blazing, 
and he suggested every sort of astonishing way to 
spend the night. But Princess ArdachefI, as the 
doyenne of the party, prudently put her foot 
down, and insisted upon bed. For had they not 
a whole morning of sight-seeing still to do on the 
morrow, and then their thirty versts in troikas 
to arrive at Milaslav. So the ladies all trouped 
off to rest. 

‘‘Leave your door open into my room, Tamara 
dear, if you do not mind,” her godmother said. 
“I am always nervous in hotels ” 

“I trust everything is going quietly,” she added 
to herself, “but one never can tell.” 

Next day the whole sky was leaden with un- 
fallen snow. Nothing more strange and gloomy 
and barbaric than Moscow looked could have been 
imagined, Tamara thought. It brought out the 
gilt domes and the unusual colors of things in a 
lurid way. 

Their first visit was to the Church of the Assump- 
tion, where the emperors are crowned. Its great 
222 


HIS HOUR 


beauty and rich colors pleased the eye. The totally 
different arrangement of things from any other sort 
of church — the shape and the absence of chairs 
or seats — the hidden altar behind the doors of the 
sanctuary — the numerous pictures and frescoed 
walls — all gave it a mysterious, wonderful charm, 
and here again the two English were struck by the 
people’s simple faith. 

‘‘We would catch every sort of disease kissing 
those Ikons after filthy ulcerated beggars,” Stephen 
Strong said to Tamara. “But the belief that 
only good can come to them brings only good. 
The study of these people makes one less material- 
istic and full of common sense. One puts more 
credence in things occult.” 

A service was just beginning, it was some high 
saint’s day, and the beautiful singing, the boys’ 
angel voices and the deep bass of the priests, un- 
accompanied by any instruments or organ, im- 
pressed Tamara far more in this old temple than 
the services had done in any of the St. Petersburg 
churches. 

A peace fell on her soul, and just as the gipsies’ 
music had been of the devil, so this seemed to come 

223 


HIS HOUR 


from heaven itself. She felt calmed and happier 
when they came out. 

After an early lunch they saw from the hotel 
windows three troikas drawn up. Two of them 
Gritzko’s, and one belonging to Prince Solentzeff- 
Zasiekin, who had also a country place in the 
neighbourhood. 

The two, which had come a day or so before from 
Milaslav, were indeed wonderful turn-outs. The 
Prince prided himself upon his horses, which were 
renowned throughout Europe. 

The graceful shaped sleighs, with the drivers 
in their quaint liveries standing up to drive, always 
unconsciously suggest that their origin must have 
been some chariot from Rome. 

Gritzko’s colors were a rich greenish-blue, 
while the reins and velvet caps and belts of the 
drivers were a dull cerise; the caps were braided 
with silver, while they and the coats and the blue 
velvet rugs were lined and bordered with sable. 
One set of horses was coal black, and the others 
a dark gray. Everything seemed in keeping with 
the buildings, and the semi-Byzantine scene with 
its Oriental note of picturesque grace. 

224 


HIS HOUR 


“Which will you choose to go in, Madame?’* 
Gritzko asked. “Shall you be drawn by the blacks 
or the grays?” 

“I would prefer the blacks,” Tamara replied. 
“I always love black horses, and these are such 
beautiful ones.” And so it was arranged. 

“If you will come with Stephen and me, Tantine,” 
the Prince said, “we shall be the lighter load and 
get there first. Madame Loraine and Olga can 
go with Serge and Lord Courtray, they will take 
the blacks; that leaves Valonne for Sonia and her 
husband. Will this please everyone?” 

Apparently it did, for thus they started. It 
was an enchanting drive over the snow. They 
seemed to fiy along, once they had left the town, 
and the weird bleak country, unmarked by any 
boundaries, impressed both Tamara and Jack. 
And while Tamara was speculating upon its mys- 
tical side. Lord Courtray was gauging its pos- 
sibilities for sport. 

They at last skirted a dark forest, which seemed 
to stretch for miles, and then after nearly three 
hours’ drive arrived at the entrance to Milaslav. 

They went through a wild, rough sort of park, 

225 


HIS HOUR 


and then came in view of the house — ^a great place 
with tall Ionic pillars supporting the front, and 
wings on each side — ^while beyond, stretching 
in an irregular mass, was a wooden structure of a 
much earlier date. 

It all appeared delightfully incongruous and a 
trifle makeshift to Tamara and Jack when they 
got out of their sleigh and were welcomed by their 
host. 

A bare hall, at one side showing discolored 
marks of mould on the wall, decorated in what 
was the Russian Empire style, a beautiful concep- 
tion retaining the classic lines of the French and 
yet with an added richness of its own. Then on 
up to a first floor above a low rez de chaussee by 
wide stairs. These connecting portions of the 
house seemed unfurnished and barren, — walls of 
stone or plaster with here and there a dilapidated 
decoration. It almost would appear as if they 
were meant to be shut off from the living rooms^ 
like the hall of a block of flats. The whole thing 
struck a strange note. There were quantities of 
servants in their quaint liveries about, and when 
finally they arrived in a great saloon it was bright 
226 


HIS HOUR 


and warm, though there was no open fireplace, 
only the huge porcelain stove. 

Here the really beautiful, though rather florid 
Alexander I. style struggled from the walls with 
an appalling set of furniture of the period of Alex- 
ander II. But the whole thing had an odd unfin- 
ished look, and a fine portrait of the Prince’s 
grandfather in one panel was entirely riddled with 
shot! 

Some splendid skins of bears and wolves were 
on the floor, and there was a general air of the room 
being lived in — ^though magnificence and dilapi- 
dation mingled everywhere. The very rich bro- 
cade on one of the sofas had the traces of great 
rents. And while one table held cigarette cases 
and cigar boxes in the most exquisitely fine enamel 
set with jewels, on another would be things of the 
roughest wood. And a cabinet at the side filled 
with a priceless collection of snuff boxes and hon- 
bonnibres of Catherine’s time had the glass of one 
door cracked into a star of splinters. 

Tamara had a sudden sensation of being a mil- 
lion miles away from England and her family: it 
all came as a breath of some other life. She felt 


HIS HOUR 


strangely nervous, she had not the least notion 
why. There was a reckless look about things 
which caused a weird thrill. 

‘‘If it were only arranged, what capabilities it all 
has,” she thought; “but as it is, it seems to speak 
of Gritzko and fierce strife.” 

Tea and the usual quantities of bonnes bouches 
and vodka waited them and a bowl of hot punch. 

And all three English people, Stephen Strong, 
Tamara and Jack, admired their host’s gracious 
welcome, and his courtly manners. Not a trace 
of the wild Gritzko seemed left. 

Tamara wondered secretly what their sleeping 
accommodation would be like. 

“Tantine, you must act hostess for me. Will 
you show these ladies their rooms,” the Prince 
said. “Dinner is at eight o’clock, but you have 
lots of time before for a little bridge if you want.” 

He took them through the usual amount of 
reception-rooms — a billiard-room and library, and 
small boudoir — ^and then they came out on another 
staircase which led to the floor above. Here he 
left them and returned to the men. 

“This was done up by the late Princess, Tamara,” 

228 


HIS HOUR 


her godmother said. ‘‘Even twenty years ago 
the taste was perfectly awful, as you can see. 
The whole house could be made beautiful if only 
there was someone who cared — ^though I expect 
we shall be comfortable enough.” 

The top passage proved to be wide, but only 
distempered in two colors, like the walls of a sta- 
tion waiting-room. Not the slightest attempt to 
beautify or furnish with carved chairs, and cabinets 
of china, and portraits and tapestry on the walls, 
as in an English house. In the passage all was 
as plain as a barrack. 

Tamara’s room and the Princess’ joined. 
They were both gorgeously upholstered in crude 
blue satin brocade, and full of gilt heavy furniture, 
but in each there was a modern brass bed. 

They were immense apartments, and warm 
and bright, monuments of the taste of 1878. 

“Is it not incredible, Marraine, that with the 
beautiful models of the eighteenth century in front 
of them, people could have perpetrated this? 
Waves of awful taste seem to come, and artists lose 
their sense of beauty and produce the grotesque.” 

“This is a paradise compared to some,” the 

229 


HIS HOUR 


Princess laughed. “You should see my sister-in- 
law’s place!” 

One bridge table was made up already when 
they got back to the saloon, and Sonia, Serge 
Grekoff and Valonne, only waited the Princess^ 
advent to begin their game. 

It seemed to be an understood thing that Gritzko 
and his English guest should be left out, and so 
practically alone. 

“I feel it is my duty to learn to play better,” 
Tamara said, “so I am going to watch.” 

He put down his hand and seized her wrist. 
“You shall certainly not,” he said. “You cannot 
be so rude as deliberately to controvert your host. 
It is my pleasure that you shall sit here and talk.” 

His eyes were flashing, and Tamara’s spirit rose. 

“What a savage you are. Prince,” she laughed. 
“Everything must be only as you wish! That I 
want to watch the bridge does not enter into your 
consideration.” 

“Not a bit.” 

“Well, then, since I must stay here I shall be 
disagreeable and not say a word.” 

And she sat down primly and folded her hands.^ 

230 


HIS HOUR 


He lit a cigarette, and she noticed his hand 
trembled a little, but his voice was quite steady, 
and in fact low as he said: 

“I tell you frankly, if you go on treating me as 
you have done to-day, whatever happens is on 
your head.” 

“Do you mean to strangle me then? — or have 
me torn up by dogs?” and Tamara smiled 
provokingly. With all the others in the room, 
and almost within earshot, she felt perfectly safe. 

She had suffered so much, it seemed good to 
oppose him a little, when it could not entail a duel 
with some unoffending man! 

‘T do not know yet what I shall be impelled to 
do, only I warn you, if you tease me, you will pay 
the price.” And he puffed a cloud of smoke. 

“He can do nothing to-night,” Tamara thought, 
“and to-morrow we are going back to Moscow, 
and then I am returning home.” A spirit of 
devilment was in her. Nearly always it had been 
he who regulated things, and now it was her turn. 
She had been so very unhappy, and had only the 
outlook of dullness and regret. To-night she 
would retaliate, she would do as she felt inclined. 
231 


HIS HOUR 


So she leaned back in her chair and smiled, 
making a tantalizing moue at him, while she said, 
mockingly: 

‘‘Aren’t you a barbarian, Prince! Only the 
days of Ivan the Terrible are over, thank goodness!” 

He took a chair and sat down quietly, but the 
tone of his voice should have warned her as he 
said: 

“You are counting upon the unknown.” 

She peeped at him now through half-closed 
alluring lids, and she noticed he was very pale. 

In her quiet, well-ordered life she had never 
come in contact with real passion. She had not 
the faintest idea of the vast depths she was stirring. 
All she knew was she loved him very much, and 
the whole thing galled her pride horribly. It 
seemed a satisfaction, a salve to her wounded 
vanity, to be able to make him feel, to punish him 
a little for all her pain. 

“Think! This time next week. I shall be safe 
in peaceful England, where we have not to com- 
bat the unknown.” 

“No?” 

“No. Marraine and I have settled everything. 

232 


HIS HOUR 


I take the Wednesday’s Nord Express after we 
get back to Petersburg.” 

“And to-morrow is Friday, and there are yet 
five days. Well, we must contrive to show you 
some more scenes of our uncivilized country, and 
perhaps after all you won’t go.” 

Tamara laughed with gay scorn. She put out 
her little foot and tapped the edge of the great 
stove. 

“For once I shall do as I please. Prince. I shall 
not ask your leave!” 

His eyes seemed to gleam, and he lay perfectly 
still in his chair like some panther watching its 
prey. Tamara’s blood was up. She would not 
be dominated! She continued mocking and defy- 
ing him until she drove him gradually mad. 

But on one thing she had counted rightly, he 
could do nothing with them all in the room. 

First one and then another left their game, and 
joined them for a few minutes, and then went back. 

And so in this fashion the late afternoon passed 
and they went up to dress. 

No one was down in the great saloon when 
Tamara and the Princess descended for dinner, 
233 


HIS HOUR 


but as they entered, Stephen Strong and Valonne 
came in from the opposite door and joined them 
near the stove, and Tamara and Valonne talked, 
while the other two wandered to a distant couch. 

‘‘Have you ever been to any of these wonderful 
parties one hears have taken place, Count Valonne 
she asked. 

Valonne smiled his enigmatic smile. “Yes,’’ 
he said. “I have once or twice — ^perhaps you 
think this room shows traces of some rather violent 
amusements, and really on looking round, I 
believe it does!” 

Tamara shivered slightly. She had the feeling 
known as a goose walking over her grave. 

“It is as if wild animals played here — ^hardly 
human beings,” she said. “Look at that cabinet, 
and the sofa, and — ^and — that picture! One can- 
not help reflecting upon what caused those holes. 
One’s imagination otin conjure up extraordinary 
things.” 

“Not more extraordinary than the probable 
facts,” and Valonne laughed as if at some astonish- 
ing recollection. “You have not yet seen our 
host’s own rooms though, I expect?” 

234 


HIS HOUR 


“Why?’’ asked Tamara. “But can they pos* 
sibly be worse than this?” 

“No, that is just it. He had them done up by 
one of your English firms, and they are beauti- 
fully comfortable and correct. His sitting-room 
is full of books, and a few good pictures, and leads 
into his bedroom and dressing-room; and as for 
the bathroom it is as perfect as any the best Ameri- 
can plumber could invent!” 

Valonne had spent years at Washington, and in 
England too, and spoke English almost as a native. 

“He is the most remarkable contrast of wildness 
and civilization I have ever met.” 

“ It always seems to me as though he were trying 
to crush something — ^to banish something in him- 
self,” said Tamara. “As though he did these wild 
things to forget.” 

“It is the limitless nature warring against an 
impossible bar. If he were an Englishman he 
would soar to be one of the greatest of your country, 
Madame,” Valonne said. “You have not perhaps 
talked to him seriously; he is extraordinarily well 
read; and then on some point that we of the Occi- 
dent have known as children, he will be completely 
16 235 


HIS HOUR 


ignorant, but he never bores one! Nothing he does 
makes one feel heavy like lead!” 

Tamara looked so interested, Valonne went on. 

‘‘These servants down here absolutely idolize 
him; they have all been in the house since he or 
they were born. For them he can do no wrong. 
He has a gymnasium, and he keeps two or three of 
them to exercise him, and wrestle with him, and 
last year Basil, the second one, put his master’s 
shoulder out of joint, and then tried to commit 
suicide with remorse. You can’t, until you have 
been here a long time, understand their strange 
natures. So easily moved to passion, so fierce and 
barbaric, and yet so full of sentiment and fidelity. 
I firmly believe if he were to order them to set 
fire to us all in our beds to-night, they would 
do it without a word! He is their personal ‘Little 
Father.’ For them there is a trinity to worship and 
respect — the Emperor, God, and their Master.” 

Tamara felt extremely moved. A passionate wild 
regret swept over her. Oh ! why might not fate let 
him love her really, so that they could be happy. 
How she would adore to soothe him, and be tender 
and gentle and obedient, and bring him peace! 
236 


HIS HOUR 


But just at that moment, with an air of exasper- 
ating insouciant insolence, he came into the room 
and began chaffing with Valonne, and turning to 
her said something which set her wounded pride 
again all aflame, and burning with impotence and 
indignation she, as the strange guest, put her hand 
on his arm to go in to dinner. 

Zacouska was partaken of, and then the serious 
repast began. Every one was in the highest 
spirits. Countess Olga and Lord Courtray looked 
as though they were getting on with giant strides. 
Jack had got to the whispering stage, which 
Tamara knew to be a serious one with him. The 
whole party became worked up to a point of extra 
gaiety. On her other hand sat Sonia’s husband, 
Prince Solentzeff-Zasiekin. But Gritzko sparkled 
with brilliancy and seemed to lead the entire 
table. 

There was something so extremely attractive 
about him in his character of host that Tamara 
felt she dared hardly look at him or she could not 
possibly keep up this cold reserve if she did! 

So she turned and talked, and apparently listened, 
with, scarcely a pause to her right-hand neighbor’s 
237 


HIS HOUR 


endless dissertations upon Moscow, and while she 
answered interestedly, her thoughts grew more and 
more full of rebellion and unrest. 

It was as if a needle had an independent will, 
and yet was being drawn by a magnet against 
itself. She had to use every bit of her force to keep 
her head turned to Prince Solentzeff-Zasiekin, and 
when Gritzko did address her, only to answer him 
in monosyllables, stiflSy, but politely, as a stranger 
guest should. 

By the end of dinner he was again wild with rage 
and exasperation. 

When they got back to the great saloon, they 
found the end of it had been cleared and a semi- 
circle of chairs arranged for them to sit in and 
watch some performance. It proved to be a troupe 
of Russian dancers and some Cossacks who made 
a remarkable display with swords, while musi- 
cians, in their national dress, accompanied the 
performance. 

Tamara and Lord Courtray had seen this same 
sort of dancing in London when Russian troupes 
gave their ‘‘turns,” but never executed with such 
wonderful fire and passion as this they witnessed 
238 


HIS HOUR 


now. The feats were quite extraordinary, and 
one or two of the women were attractive-looking 
creatures. 

Gritzko’s attitude toward them was that of the 
benevolent master to highly trained valued hounds. 
Indeed this feeling seemed to be mutual, the hounds 
adoring their master with blind devotion, as all his 
belongings did. 

During most of the time he sat behind the 
Princess, and whispered whatever conversation he 
had in her ear; but every now and then he would 
move to Princess Sonia or Countess Olga, and 
lastly subsided close to Tamara, and bending over 
leaned on the back of her chair. 

He did not speak, but his close proximity caused 
her to experience the exquisite physical thrill she 
feared and dreaded. When her heart beat like 
that, and her body tingled with sensation, it was 
almost impossible to keep her head. 

His fierceness frightened her, but when he was 
gentle, she knew she melted at once, and only 
longed to be in his arms. So she drew herself up 
and shrank forward away from him, and began an 
excited conversation with Stephen Strong. 

239 


HIS HOUR 


Gritzko got up abruptly and strode back to the 
Princess. And soon tables and supper were brought 
in, and there was a general move. 

Tamara contrived to outwit him once more when 
he came up to speak. It was the only way, she 
felt. No half-measures would do now. She loved 
him too much to be able to unbend an inch with 
safety. Otherwise it would be all over with her, 
and she could not resist. 

They had been standing alone for an instant, 
and he said, looking passionately into her eyes: 

“Tamara, do you know you are driving me crazy 
— do you think it wise 

“I really don’t care whether my conduct is wise 
or not. Prince,” she replied. “As I told you, to- 
night, and from now onward, I shall do as I 
please.” And she gathered all her forces together 
to put an indifferent look on her face. 

“So be it then,” he said, and turned instantly 
away, and for the rest of the time never addressed 
her again. 

The long drive in the cold had made every one 
sleepy, and contrary to their usual custom, they 
were all ready for bed soon after one o’clock, and 
240 


HIS HOUR 


to their great surprise Gritzko made no protest, but 
let the ladies quietly go. 

Tamara’s last thoughts before she closed her 
weary eyes were, what a failure it all had been! 
She had succeeded in nothing. She loved him 
madly, and she was going back home. And if she 
had made him suffer, it was no consolation! She 
would much rather have been happy in his arms ! 

Meanwhile, Gritzko had summoned Ivan, his 
major domo, and the substance of his orders to 
that humble slave was this. That early on the 
morrow the stove was to be lit in the hut by the 
lake, where at the time when the woodcock came 
in quantities he sometimes spent the night waiting 
for the dawn. 

“And see that there is fodder for the horses,” he 
added. “And that Stepan drives my troika with 
the blacks, and let the brown team be ready, too, 
but neither of these to come round until the grays 
have gone. And in the hut put food — cold food — ■ 
and some brandy and champagne.” 

The servant bowed in obedience and was prepar- 
ing to leave the room. , 

“Oil the locks and put the key in my overcoat 

241 


HIS HOUR 


pocket/’ his master called again. And then he lit 
another cigarette and drawing back the heavy 
curtains looked out on the night. 

It was inky black, the snow had not yet begun 
to fall. 

All promised well. 


V 


CHAPTER XVII 


t5 


AMARA had just begun to dress when 
her godmother came into her room next 
day. 

"‘There is going to be a terrible snow storm, 
dear,” she said. “I think we should get down 
fairly early and suggest to Gritzko that we start 
back to Moscow before lunch. It is no joke to be 
caught in this wild country. I will send you in 
Katia.” 

Tamara’s maid had been left in Petersburg, and 
indeed her godmother’s, an elderly Russian ac- 
customed to these excursions, had been the only one 
brought. 

“I won’t be more than half an hour dressing,” 
she said. “Don’t go down without me, Marraine.” 

And the Princess promised and returned to her 
room. 

“ It has been a real success, our little outing, has 
it not ? ” she said, when later they were descending 
the stairs. “Gritzko has been so quiet and nice. 

243 


HIS HOUR 


I am so happy, dear child, that you can go away 
now without that uncomfortable feeling of quarrel- 
ing. There was one moment when he got up from 
behind your chair last night I feared you had 
angered him about something, but afterward he 
was so gentle and charming when we talked I 
felt quite reassured.” 

Yes, indeed,” feebly responded Tamara. “ The 
party has been positively tame ! ” 

They found their host had gone with Jack and 
the rest of the men to the stables to inspect his 
famous teams. But Princess Sonia and Countess 
Olga were already down. They were smoking 
lazily, and had almost suggested a double dummy 
of their favorite game. 

They hailed the two with delight, and soon the 
four began a rubber, and Tamara, who hated it, 
had to keep the whole of her attention to try and 
avoid making some mistake. 

Thus an hour past, and first Stephen Strong 
and then the other men came in. 

Jack Courtray was enthusiastic about the horses, 
and indeed the whole thing. He and Gritzko 
had arranged to go on a bear-hunt the following 

244 


HIS HOUR 


week, and everything looked couleur de rose — 
except the sky, that continued covered with an 
inky pall. 

The Princess beckoned to Gritzko and took 
him aside. She explained her fears about the 
storm, and the necessity of an earlier start, to which 
he agreed. 

‘T am going to ask you to let us take Katia with 
us, we have only the one maid, and must have her 
in Moscow when we arrive,” she said. 

So thus it was arranged. The Princess and 
Stephen Strong and Katia were to start first, and 
Sonia and her husband would take both Serge 
and Valonne, leaving Gritzko to bring Ta- 
mara, Olga and Lord Courtray last. 

All through the early lunch, which was now 
brought in, nothing could have been more lamblike 
than their host. He exerted himself to be sweetly 
agreeable to every one, and the Princess, generally 
so alert, felt tranquil and content, while Tamara 
almost experienced a sense of regret. 

Only Count Valonne, if he had been asked, 
would have suggested — ^but he was not oflicious 
and kept his ideas to himself. 

245 


HIS HOUR 


The snow now began to fall, just a few thin 
flakes, but it made them hurry their departure. 

In the general chatter and chaff no one noticed 
that Gritzko had never once spoken directly to 
Tamara, but she was conscious of it, and instead 
of its relieving her, she felt a sudden depression. 

‘^You will be quite safe with Olga and your 
friend, dearest,” the Princess whispered to her 
as she got into the flrst troika which came round. 
“And we shall be only just in front of you.” 

So they waved adieu. 

Then Princess Sonia’s party started. The cold 
was intense, and as the team of blacks had not yet 
appeared, the host suggested the two ladies should 
go back and wait in the saloon. 

“Don’t you think our way of herding in parties 
here is quite ridiculous,” he said to Jack, when 
Olga and Tamara were gone. “After the rest get 
some way on. I’ll have round the brown team too. 
It is going to be a frightful storm, and we shall 
go much better with only two in each sleigh.” 

Jack was entirely of his opinion, from his Eng- 
lish point of view, a party of four made two of them 
superfluous. Countess Olga and himself were 
246 


HIS HOUR 


quite enough. So he expressed his hearty ap- 
proval of this arrangement, and presently as they 
smoked on the steps, the three brown horses trotted 
up. 

“I’ll go and fetch Olga,” Gritzko said, and as 
luck would have it he met her at the saloon door. 

“I had forgotten my muff,” she said, “and had 
just run up to fetch it.” 

Then he explained to her about the storm and 
the load, and since it was a question of duty to the 
poor horses. Countess Olga was delighted to let 
pleasure go with it hand in hand. And she allowed 
herself to be settled under the furs, with Jack, 
without going back to speak to Tamara. Indeed, 
Gritzko was so matter of fact she started without 
a qualm. 

“We shall overtake you in ten minutes,” he 
said. “The blacks are much the faster team.” 
And they gaily waved as they disappeared beyond 
the bend of the trees. Then he spoke to his faithful 
Ivan. “In a quarter of an hour let the blacks 
come round.” And there was again the gleam 
of a panther in his eyes as he glanced at the snow. 

All this while Tamara, seated by the saloon stove, 

247 


HIS HOUR 


was almost growing uneasy at being left so long 
alone. What could Olga be doing to stay such a 
time? 

Then the door opened, and the Prince came in. 

*‘We must start now,” he said, in a coldly polite 
tone. “The storm is coming, and four persons 
made too heavy a load; so Lord Courtray and 
Olga have gone on.” 

Tamara’s heart gave a great bound, but his 
face expressed nothing, and her sudden fear calmed. 

He was ceremoniously polite as he helped her in. 
Nor did he sit too near her or change his manner 
one atom as they went along. He hardly spoke; 
indeed they both had to crouch down in the furs to 
shelter from the blinding snow. And if Tamara 
had not been so preoccupied with keeping her 
woollen scarf tight over her head she would have 
noticed that when they left the park gate they turned 
to the right, in the full storm, not to the left, where 
it was clearer and which was the way they had come. 

At last the Prince said something to the coachman 
in Russian, and the man shook his head — the going 
was terribly heavy. They seemed to be making 
tracks for themselves through untrodden snow. 

248 


HIS HOUR 


‘‘Stepan says we cannot possibly go much further, 
and we must shelter in the shooting hut,” Gritzko 
announced, gravely; and again Tamara felt a 
twinge of fear. 

“But what has become of the others?” she 
asked. “ Why do we not see their tracks ? ” 

“They are obliterated in five minutes. You 
do not understand the Russian storm,” he said. 

Tamara’s heart now began to beat again rather 
wildly, but she reasoned with herself; she was no 
coward, and indeed why had she any cause for 
alarm? No one could be more aloof than her 
companion seemed. She was already numb with 
cold too, and her common sense told her shelter 
of any sort would be acceptable. 

They had turned into the forest by now, and 
the road — ^if road it could be called — ^was rather 
more distinct. 

It was a weird scene. The great giant pine 
trees, and the fine falling flakes penetrating through, 
the quickly vanishing daylight, and the mist rising 
from the steaming horses as they galloped along; 
while Stepan stood there urging them on like some 
northern pirate at a ship’s prow. 

249 


HIS HOUR 


At last the view showed the white frozen lake, 
and by it a rough log hut. They came upon it 
suddenly, so that Tamara could only realize it 
was not large and rather low, when they drew up 
at the porch. 

At the time she was too frozen and miserable to 
notice that the Prince unlocked the door, but 
afterward she remembered she should have been 
struck by the strangeness of his having a key. 

He helped her out, and she almost fell she was 
so stiff with cold, and then she found herself, 
after passing through a little passage, in a warm, 
large room. It had a stove at one end, and the 
walls, distempered green, had antlers hung round. 
There was one plain oak table and a bench behind 
it, a couple of wooden arm-chairs, a corner cup- 
board, and an immense couch with leather cush- 
ions, which evidently did for a bed, and on the 
floor were several wolf skins. 

The Prince made no explanation as to why 
there was a Are, he just helped her off with her 
furs without a word; he hung them up on a peg 
and then divested himself of his own. 

He wore the brown coat to-day, and was hand- 

250 


HIS HOUR 


some as a god. Then, after he had examined the 
stove and looked from the window, he quietly 
left the room. 

The contrast of the heat after the intense cold 
without made a tingling and singing in Tamara’s 
ears. She was not sure, but thought she heard 
the key turn in the lock. She started to her feet 
from the chair where she sat and rushed to try the 
door, and this time her heart again gave a terrible 
bound, and she stood sick with apprehension. 

The door was fastened from without. 

For a few awful moments which seemed an 
eternity, she was conscious of nothing but an 
agonized terror. She could not reason or decide 
how to act. And then her fine courage came back, 
and she grew more calm. 

She turned to the window, but that was double, 
and tightly shut and fastened up. There was no 
other exit, only this one door. Finding escape 
hopeless, she sat down and waited the turn of 
events. Perhaps he only meant to frighten her, 
perhaps there was some reason why the door must 
be barred; perhaps there were bears in this terribly 
lonely place. 

17 


251 


HIS HOUR 


She sat there reasoning with herself and con- 
trolling her nerves for moments which appeared 
like hours, and then she heard footsteps in the 
passage, breaking the awful silence, and the door 
opened, and Gritzko strode into the room. 

He locked it after him, and pocketed the key; 
then he faced her. What she saw in his passionate 
eyes turned her lips gray with fear. 

And now everything of that subtle thing in 
womankind which resists capture, came upper- 
most in Tamara’s spirit. She loved him — but 
even so she would not be taken. 

She stood holding on to the rough oak table 
like a deer at bay, her face deadly white, and her 
eyes wide and staring. 

Then stealthily the Prince drew nearer, and 
with a spring seized her and clasped her in his 
arms. 

“Now, now, you shall belong to me,” he cried. 
“You are mine at last, and you shall pay for the 
hours of pain you have made me suffer!” and he 
rained mad kisses on her trembling lips. 

A ghastly terror shook Tamara. This man 
whom she loved, to whom in happier circumstances 
252 


HIS HOUR 


she might have ceded all that he asked, now only 
filled her with frantic fear. But she would not 
give in, she would rather die than be conquered. 

‘‘Gritzko — oh, Gritzko! please — please don’t!” 
she cried, almost suffocated. 

But she knew as she looked at him that he was 
beyond all hearing. 

His splendid eyes blazed with the passion of a 
wild beast. She knew if she resisted him he would 
kill her. Well, better death than this hideous 
disgrace. 

He held her from him for a second, and then 
lifted her in his arms. 

But with the strength of terrified madness she 
grasped his wounded arm, and in the second in 
which he made a sudden wince, she gave an eel- 
like twist and slipped from his grasp, and as she 
did so she seized the pistol in his belt and stood 
erect while she placed the muzzle to her own 
white forehead. 

“Touch me again, and I will shoot!” she gasped, 
and sank down on the bench almost exhausted 
behind the rough wooden table. 

He made a step forward, but she lifted the 

253 


HIS HOUR 


pistol again to her head and leant her arm on 
the board to steady herself. And thus they glared 
at one another, the hunter and the hunted. 

‘"This is very clever of you, Madame,’’ he said; 
“but do you think it will avail you anything? 
You can sit like that all night, if you wish, but 
before dawn I will take you.” 

Tamara did not answer. 

Then he flung himself on the couch and lit a 
cigarette, and all that was savage and cruel in him 
flamed from his eyes. 

“My God! what do you think it has been like 
since the beginning?” he said. “Your silly prud- 
ish fears and airs. And still I loved you — ^madly 
loved you. And since the night when I kissed 
your sweet lips you have made me go through 
hell — cold and provoking and disdainful, and last 
night when you defied me, then I determined 
you should belong to me by force; and now it is 
only a question of time. No power in heaven or 
earth can save you — Ah! if you had been different, 
how happy we might have been! But it is too 
late; the devil has won, and soon I will do what 
I please.” 


254 


HIS HOUR 


Tamara never stirred, and the strain of keeping 
the pistol to her head made her wrist ache. 

For a long time there was silence, and the great 
heat caused a mist to swim before her eyes, and 
an overpowering drowsiness — Oh, heaven! — ^if un- 
consciousness should come upon her! 

Then the daylight faded quite, and the Prince 
got up and lit a small oil lamp and set it on the 
shelf. He opened the stove and let the glow 
from the door flood through the room. 

Then he sat down again. 

A benumbing agony crept over Tamara; her 
brain grew confused in the hot, airless room. 
It seemed as if everything swam round her. All 
she saw clearly were Gritzko’s eyes. 

There was a deathly silence, but for an occasional 
moan of the wind in the pine trees. The drift of 
snow without showed white as it gradually blocked 
the window. 

Were they buried here — ^under the snow? Ah! 
she must fight against this horrible lethargy. 

It was a strange picture. The rough hut room 
with its skins and antlers; the fair, civilized woman, 
delicate and dainty in her soft silk blouse, sitting 
255 


HIS HOUR 


there with the ^rim Cossack pistol at her head — 
and opposite her, still as marble, the conquering 
savage man, handsome and splendid in his picture- 
esque uniform; and just the dull glow of the stove 
and the one oil lamp, and outside the moaning 
wind and the snow. 

Presently Tamara’s elbow slipped and the pistol 
jerked forward. In a second the Prince had sprung 
into an alert position, but she straightened her- 
self, and put it back in its place, and he relaxed the 
tension, and once more reclined on the couch. 

And now there floated through Tamara’s con- 
fused brain the thought that perhaps it would be 
better to shoot in any case — ^shoot and have done 
with it. But the instinct of her youth stopped her 
— ^suicide was a sin, and while she did not reason, 
the habit of this belief kept its hold upon her. 

So an hour passed in silence, then the agonizing 
certainty came upon her that there must be an 
end. Her arm had grown numb. 

Strange lights seemed to flash before her eyes — ■ 
Yes, — surely — ^that was Gritzko coming toward 
her — ! 

She gave a gasping cry and tried to pull the 

256 


HIS HOUR 


trigger, but it was stiff, her fingers had gone to 
sleep and refused to obey her. The pistol dropped 
from her nerveless grasp. 

So this was the end ! He would win. 

She gave one moan — ^and fell forward uncon- 
scious upon the table. 

With a bound Gritzko leaped up, and seizing her 
in his arms carried her into the middle of the room. 
Then he paused a moment to exult in his triumph. 

Her little head, with its soft brown hair from 
which the fur cap had fallen, lay helpless on his 
breast. The pathetic white face, with its childish 
curves and long eyelashes, resting on her cheek, 
made no movement. The faint, sweet scent of a 
great bunch of violets crushed in her belt came up 
to him. 

And as he fiercely bent to kiss her white, uncon- 
scious lips, suddenly he drew back and all the 
savage exultation went out of him. 

He gazed at her for a moment, and then carried 
her tenderly to the couch and laid her down. She 
never stirred. Was she dead? Oh, God! 

In frightful anguish he put his ear to her heart; 
it did not seem to beat. 


257 


HIS HOUR 


In wild fear he tore open her blouse and wrenched 
apart her fine underclothing, the better to listen. 
Yes, now through only the bare soft skin he heard 
a faint sound. Ah! saints in heaven! she was not 
dead. 

Then he took off her boots and rubbed her cold 
little silk-stockinged feet, and her cold damp hands, 
and presently as he watched, it seemed as if some 
color came back to her cheeks, and at last she gave 
a sigh and moved her head without opening her 
eyes — ^and then he saw that she was not uncon- 
scious now, but sleeping. 

Then the bounds of all his mad passion burst, 
and as he knelt beside the couch, great tears suf- 
fused his eyes and trickled down his cheeks. 

“My Doushka! my love!” he whispered, brokenly. 
“Oh, God! and I would have hurt you!” 

He rose quickly, and going to the window opened 
the ventilator at the top, picked up the pistol from 
the table and replaced it in his belt, and then he 
knelt once more beside Tamara, and with deepest 
reverence bent down and kissed her feet. 

“Sleep, sleep, my sweet Princess,” he said softly, 
and then crept stealthily from the room. 

258 


CHAPTER XVIII 


light was gray when Tamara awoke, 
ft ft though the lamp still burned — ^more 
than three parts of the window was 
darkened by snow — only a peep of daylight 
flickered in at the top. 

Where was she! What had happened? Some- 
thing ghastly — ^but what ? 

Then she perceived her torn blouse, and with a 
terrible pang remembrance came back to her. 

She started up, and as she did so realized she 
was only in her stockinged feet. 

For a moment she staggered a little and then fell 
back on the couch. 

The awful certainty — or so it seemed to her — of 
what had occurred came upon her, Gritzko had 
won — she was utterly disgraced. 

The whole training of her youth thundered at 
her. Of all sins, none had been thought so great 
as this which had happened to her. 

She was an outcast. She was no better than 

259 


HIS HOUR 


poor Mary Gibson whom Aunt Clara had with 
harshness turned from her house. 

She — Si lady! — a proud English lady! She 
covered her face with her hands. What had her 
anguish of mind been before, when compared with 
this! She had suffered hurt to her pride the day 
after he had kissed her, but now that seemed as 
nothing balanced with such hideous disgrace. 

She moaned and rocked herseK to and fro. Wild 
thoughts came — ^where was the pistol ? She would 
end her life. 

She looked everywhere, but it was gone. 

Presently she crouched down in a corner like a 
cowed dog, too utterly overcome with shame and 
despair to move. 

And there she still was when Gritzko entered 
the room. 

She looked up at him piteously, and with uncon- 
scious instinct tried to pull together her torn blouse. 

In a flash he saw what she thought, and one of 
those strange shades in his character made him 
come to a resolve. Not until she should lie willingly 
in his arms — ^herself given by love — ^should he tell 
her her belief was false. 


260 


HIS HOUR 


He advanced up the room with a grave quiet 
face. His expression was inscrutable. She could 
read nothing from his look. Her sick imagination 
told her he was thus serene because he had won, 
and she covered her face with her hands, while her 
cheeks flamed, and she sobbed. 

Her weeping hurt him — ^he nearly relented — ^but 
as he came near she looked up. 

No! Not in this mood would he win her! and 
his resolve held. 

She did not make him any reproaches; she just 
sat there, a crumpled, pitiful figure in a corner on 
the floor. 

‘‘The snowstorm is over,’^ he said in a restrained 
voice; “we can get on now. Some of my Moujiks 
got here this morning, and I have been able to 
send word to the Princess that she should not be 
alarmed.” 

Then, as Tamara did not move, he put out his 
hand and helped her up. She shuddered when he 
touched her, and her tears burst out afresh. Where 
was all Jier pride gone — ^it lay trampled in the dust. 

“You are tired and hungry, Madame,” he said, 
“and here is a looking-glass and a comb and 
261 


HIS HOUR 


brush/’ and he opened a door of the tall cupboard 
which filled the corner opposite the stove, and took 
the things out for her. “Perhaps you might like 
to arrange yourself while I bring you some food.” 

“How can I face the others, — ^with this blouse.*^’ 
she exclaimed miserably, and then her cheeks 
crimsoned again, and she looked down. 

He did not make any explanation of how it had 
got torn — ^the moment was a wonderful one be- 
tween them. 

Over Tamara crept some strange emotion, and 
he walked to the door quickly to prevent himself 
from clasping her in his arms, and kissing away 
her fears. 

When she was alone the cunning of all Eve’s 
daughters filled her. Above all things she must 
now use her ingenuity to efface these startling 
proofs. She darted to the cupboard and searched 
among the things there, and eventually found a 
rough housewife, and chose out a needle and 
coarse thread. It was better than nothing, so she 
hurriedly drew off the blouse, then she saw her 
torn underthings — ^and another convulsive pang 
went through her — ^but she set to work. She 
262 


HIS HOUR 


knew that however she might make even the 
blouse look to the casual eyes of her godmother, 
she could never deceive her maid. Then the 
thought came that fortunately Johnson was in 
Petersburg, and all these things could be left 
behind at Moscow. Yes, no one need ever know. 

With feverish haste she cobbled up the holes, 
glancing nervously every few moments to the door 
in case Gritzko should come in. Then she put the 
garment on again — ^refastened her brooch and 
brushed and recoiled her hair. What she saw in 
the small looking-glass helped to restore her nerve. 
Except that her eyes were red, and she was very 
pale, she was tidy and properly clothed. 

She sat down by the table and tried to think. 
These outside things could still look right, but 
nothing could restore her untarnished pride. 

How could she ever take her blameless place in 
the world again. 

Once more it hurt Gritzko terribly to see the 
woebegone, humbled, hopeless look on her face 
as he came in and put some food on the table. 
He cut up some tempting bits and put them on 
her plate, while he told her she must eat — and she 

263 


HIS HOUR 


obeyed mechanically. Then he poured out a 
tumbler of champagne and made her drink it 
down. It revived her, and she said she was ready 
to start. But as she stood he noticed that all her 
proud carriage of head was gone. 

“My God! what should I feel like now?” he 
said to himself, “if it were really true!” 

He wrapped her in her furs with cold politeness, 
his manner had resumed the stiffness of their 
yesterday’s drive. 

Suddenly she felt it was not possible there could 
be this frightful secret between them. It must 
surely be all a dreadful dream. 

She began to speak, and he waited gravely for 
what she would say; but the words froze on her 
lips when she saw the pistol in his belt — ^that 
brought back the reality. She shuddered con- 
vulsively and clenched her hands. He put on his 
furs quietly and then opened the door. 

He lifted her into the troika which was waiting 
outside. Stepan’s face, as he stood holding the 
reins, was as stolid as though nothing unusual had 
occurred. 

So they started 


264 


HIS HOUR 


“I told the messenger to tell Tantine that we 
were caught in the snow,” he said, ‘‘and had to 
take shelter at the farm. — ^There is a farm a verst 
to the right after one passes the forest. It contains 
a comfortable farmer’s wife and large family, and 
though you found it too confoundedly warm in 
their kitchen you passed a possible night. 

“Very well,” said Tamara with grim meekness. 

Then there was silence. 

Her thoughts became a little confused with 
the intense cold and the effect of the champagne, 
and once or twice she dozed off; and when he saw 
this he drew her close to him and let her sleep with 
her head against his arm, while he wrapped the 
furs round her so that she felt no cold. Then he 
kept watch over her tenderly, fondest love in his 
eyes. She would wake sometimes with a start and 
draw herself away, but soon fell off again, and in 
this fashion, neither speaking, the hours passed and 
they gradually drew near Moscow. 

Then she woke completely with a shudder and 
sat up straight, and so they came to the hotel and 
found the Princess and the others anxiously waiting 
for them. 


265 


HIS HOUR 


‘‘What an unfortunate contretemps, Tamara, j 
dear child,” her godmother said, “that wicked I 
storm! We only just arrived safely, and poor | 
Olga and your friend fared no better than you! 
Imagine! they, too, had to take shelter in that 
second village in a most horrible hovel, which they 
shared with the cows. It has been too miserable 
for you all four I am afraid.” i 

But Gritzko was obliged to turn quickly away j 
to hide the irrepressible smile in his eyes — areally, I 
sometimes, fate seemed very kind. 

So there was no scandal, only commiseration, 
and both Countess Olga and Tamara were petted 
and spoilt — ^while, if there was a roguish note in 
Valonne’s sympathetic condolences, none of them 
appeared to notice it. | 

However, no petting seemed to revive | 

Tamara. j 

“You have caught a thorough chill, I fear, dear- i 
est,” the Princess said; and as they had missed their j 
sleeping berths engaged for the night before, and 
were unable to get accommodation on the train again i 

for the night, they were forced to remain in Moscow 
until the next day, so the Princess insisted upon I 

266 j, 


i 


HIS HOUR 


her godchild going immediately to bed, while the 
rest of the party settled down to bridge. 

“It is a jolly thing, a snowstorm!” Lord Court- 
ray said to Gritzko. “Isn’t it? ’Pon my soul I 
have never enjoyed the smell of cows and hay so 
much in my life!” 

But upstairs in the stiff hotel bedroom Tamara 
sobbed herself to sleep. 


18 


CHAPTER XIX 


HE journey back to Petersburg passed in 
A a numb, hopeless dream for Tamara. 

She did her best to be natural and gay, 
but her white face, pinched and drawn, caused 
her godmother to feel anxious about her. 

Gritzko had bidden them good-bye at the train — 
he was going back to Milaslav to arrange for his 
and Jack’s bear-hunt — ^and would not be in the 
capital for two more days. That would be the 
Tuesday, and Tamara was to leave on Wednesday 
evening by the Nord Express. 

He had kissed her hand with respectful reverence 
as he said farewell, and the last she saw of him 
was standing there in his gray overcoat and high 
fur collar, a light in his eyes as they peered from 
beneath his Astrakhan cap. 

The Princess sent for the doctor next day — they 
arrived late at night at the Ardacheff house. 

‘‘Your friend has got a chill, and seems to have 

268 


HIS HOUR 


had a severe shock,” he said when he came from 
Tamara’s room. “Make her rest in bed to-day, 
and then distract her with cheerful society.” 

And the Princess pondered as she sat in the 
blue salon alone. A shock — ^what had happened ? 
Could fear of the storm have caused a shock? 
She felt very worried. 

And poor Tamara lay limp in her bed; but every 
now and then she would clench her hands in anguish 
as some fresh aspect of things struck her. The 
most ghastly moment of all came when she remem- 
bered the eventual fate of Mary Gibson. 

What if she also should have 

“No! Oh, no!” she unconsciously screamed 
aloud; and her godmother, coming into the room, 
was really alarmed. 

From this moment onward the horror of this 
thought took root in her brain, and she knew no 
peace. But her will and her breeding came to 
her rescue. She would not lie there like an invalid; 
she would get up and dress and go down to tea. 
She would chaff with the others who would all 
swarm to see her. No one should pity or speculate 
about her. And she made Johnson garb her in 
269 


HIS HOUR 


her loveliest tea-gown, and then she went to the 
blue salon. 

And amidst the laughter and fun they had talking 
of their adventure, no one but Stephen Strong 
remarked the feverish unrest in her eyes, or the 
bright, hectic flush in her cheeks. 

When night came and she was alone again, her 
thoughts made a hell; she could not sleep; she 
paced her room. If Gritzko should not return on 
Tuesday. If she should never see him again. 
What — ^what would happen — if — she — ^too — ^like 
poor Mary Gibson 

Next day — the Tuesday — ^at about eleven o’clock, 
a servant in the Milaslavski livery arrived with a 
letter, a stiff-looking, large, sealed letter. She had 
never seen Gritzko’s writing before and she looked 
at it critically as she tremblingly broke it open. 

It was written from Milaslav the day they had 
left Moscow. It was short and to the point, and 
her eyes dilated as she read. 

It began thus: 

“To Madame Loraine,- 

“Madame, — ^I write to ask you graciously 
to accord me the honor of your hand. If you 

270 


HIS HOUR 


will grant me this favor I will endeavor to make 
you happy. 

“I have the honor, Madame, to remain, 

‘‘Your humble and devoted serviteur, 

“Gregoir* Milaslavski.” 

And as once before in her life Tamara’s knees 
gave way under her, and she sat down hurriedly 
on the bed — ^all power of thought had left her. 

“The messenger waits, ma’am,” her maid said, 
stolidly, from the door. 

Then she pulled herself together and went to 
the writing-table. Her hand trembled, but she 
steadied it, and wrote her answer 

“To Prince Milaslavski, — 

“ Monsieur, — have no choice. I consent 
“Yours truly, 

“Tamara Loraine.** 

And she folded it, and placing it in the envelope, 
she sealed it with her own little monogram seal, 
in tender blue wax, and handed it to her maid, who 
left the room. 

Then she stared in front of her — ^her arms crossed 
* “ Gritzko ” is the diminutive of Gregoir. 

271 


HIS HOUR 


on the table — ^but she could not have analyzed the 
emotions which were flooding her being. 

Her godmother found her there still as an image 
when presently she came to ask after her health. 

“Tamara! dearest child. You worry me dread- 
fully. Confide in me, little one. Tell me what 
has happened.?^” and she placed her kind arms 
around her goddaughter’s shoulders and caressed 
and comforted her. 

Tamara shivered, and then stood up. “I am 
going to marry Gritzko, Marraine,” she said. “I 
have just sent him my answer.” 

And the Princess had too much tact to do more 
than embrace her, and express her joy, and give 
her her blessing. All as if the news contained no 
flaw, and had come in the most delightful manner. 

Then she left her alone in her room. 

Yes, this was the only thing to be done, and 
the sooner the ceremony should be over the better. 
Lent would come on in a few short weeks; that 
would be the excuse to hasten matters, and this 
idea was all Tamara was conscious of as she 
finished dressing. 

At twelve o’clock, with formal ceremony. Prince 

272 


HIS HOUR 


Milasldvski sent to ask if the Princess Arddcheff 
could receive him — ^and soon after he was shown 
up into the first salon, where the hostess awaited 
him. 

He was dressed in his blue and scarlet uniform, 
and was groomed with even extra care, she noticed, 
as he advanced with none of his habitual easy 
familiarity to greet her. 

“I come to ask your consent to my marriage 
with your goddaughter, Tantine,’’ he said, with 
grave courtesy, as he kissed her hand. ‘‘She has 
graciously promised to become my wife, and I 
have only to secure your consent to complete my 
felicity.” 

“Gritzko! my dear boy!” was all the Princess 
could murmur. “If — ^if — ^you are sure it is for the 
happiness of you both nothing of course could 
give me greater joy; but — ” 

“It will be for our happiness,” he answered, 
letting the hinted doubt pass. 

Then his ceremonious manner melted a little, 
and he again kissed his old friend’s hand. “ Dear 
Tantine, have no fears. I promise you it shall be 
for our happiness.” 


273 


HIS HOUR 


The Princess was deeply moved. She knew 
there must be something underneath all this, but 
she was accustomed to believe Gritzko blindly, 
and she felt that if he gave his word, things must 
be right. She would ask no questions. 

‘‘ Will you go and fetch my fiancee like the dar- 
ling you are,’’ he said presently, ‘T want you to 
give her to me.” 

And the Princess, quite overcome with emotion, 
left the room. 

It was not like a triumphant prospective Princess 
and bride that Tamara followed her godmother, 
when they returned together. She looked a slender 
drooping girl, in a clinging dove-colored gown, and 
she hardly raised her eyes from the carpet. Her 
trembling hand was cold as death when the Princess 
took it and placed it in Gritzko’s, and as they 
stood receiving her blessing she kissed them both, 
and then hurriedly made her exit. 

When they were alone Tamara remained limp 
and still, her eyes fixed on the ground. It was he 
who broke the silence — ^as he took her left hand, 
and touched it with his lips. 

He drew from her finger her wedding ring and 

274 


HIS HOUR 


carelessly put it on a table — ^while he still held 
her hand — then he placed his gift in the wedding 
ring’s place, a glittering thing of an immense 
diamond and ruby. 

Tamara shivered. She looked down at her 
hand, it seemed as if all safe and solid things were 
slipping from her with the removal of that plain 
gold band. She made no remark as to the beauty 
of the token of her engagement, she did not thank 
him, she remained inert and nerveless. 

‘T thank you, Madame, for your consent,” 
he said stiffly, ‘‘I will try to make you not regret 
it.” He used no word of love, nor did he attempt 
any caresses, although if she had looked up she 
would have seen the passionate tenderness brim- 
ming in his eyes, which he could not conceal. But 
she did not raise her head, and it all seemed to her 
part of the same thing — ^he knew he had sinned 
against her, and was making the only reparation a 
gentleman could offer. 

And even now with her hand in his, and the 
knowledge that soon she would be his Princess, 
there was no triumph or joy, only the sick sense 
of humiliation she felt. Passion, and its result 

275 


HIS HOUR 


— ^necessity — ^not love, had brought about this 
situation. 

So she stood there in silence. It required the 
whole force of Gritzko’s will to prevent him from 
folding her shrinking pitiful figure in his strong 
arms, and raining down kisses and love words 
upon her. But the stubborn twist in his nature 
retained its hold. No, that glorious moment should 
come with a blaze of sunlight when all was won, 
when he had made her love him in spite of 
everything. 

Meanwhile nothing but reserved homage, and a 
settling of details. 

‘‘You will let the marriage take place before 
Lent, won’t you he said, dropping her hand. 

And Tamara answered dully. 

“I will marry you as soon as you wish,” and 
she turned and sat down. 

He leant on the mantlepiece and looked at her. 
He understood perfectly the reason which made 
her consent to any date — ^and he smiled with some 
strange powerful emotion — ^and yet his eye had a 
whimsical gleam. 

“You are afraid that something can happen 

276 


HTS HOUR 


isn’t it?” he said. ‘‘Well, I shall be most 

pleased when that day comes.” 

But poor Tamara could not bear this — the 
crystalizing of her fears! With a stifled cry, she 
buried her face in the cushions. He did not at- 
tempt to comfort her — though he could hardly 
control his longing to do so. Instead of which he 
said gravely, “I suppose you must communicate 
with your family? They will come here perhaps 
for the wedding? You have not to ask any one’s 
consent by the laws of your country, have you ? — 
being a widow.” 

Tamara with a shamed crimson face half raised 
her head. 

“I am free to do as I choose,” she said, and she 
looked down in crushed wretchedness. “Yes, 
I suppose they will come to the wedding.” 

“Lent is such an excellent excuse,” he went 
on. “And all this society is accustomed to my 
doing as I please, so there will be no great wonder 
over the haste — only I am sorry if it inconveniences 
you — such hurried preparation.” 

“How long is it before Lent?” Tamara asked 
without interest. 


277 


HIS HOUR 


""Just under a month — ^almost four weeks— 
shall the wedding take place in about a fortnight? 
Then we can go south to the sun to spend our 
honeymoon.” 

""Just as you will;” Tamara agreed in a deadly 
resigned voice. ""I am always confused with the 
dates — ^the difference between the English and 
Russian — ^will you write down what it will be that 
I may send it to my father?” 

He picked up a calendar which lay upon 
the table, and made the calculations, then he 
jotted it all down on a card and handed it to 
her. 

She took it and never looking at him rose and 
made a step toward the door, and as she passed 
the table where he had put her wedding ring she 
surreptitiously secured it. 

""I suppose you are staying for lunch?” she said 
in the same monotonous voice. ""Can I go now ? — 
do you want to say any more ?” 

""Tamara!” he exclaimed, with entreaty in his 
tone, and then with quick repression he bowed 
gravely and once more touched her hand with his 
lips — ere he held open the door for her. 

278 


HIS HOUR 


“I will be here when you return — will await 
your pleasure.” 

So she left the room quietly. And when she was 
gone he walked wildly up and down for a moment — 
then he bent and passionately kissed the cushion 
she had leant on. 

Tamara would learn what his love meant — 
when the day should come. 




CHAPTER XX 


HE lunch passed off with quiet reserve — 
M ^ there was no one present but Stephen 
Strong. Tamara endeavored to behave 
naturally and answered Gritzko whenever he spoke 
to her. He, too, played his part, but the tone of 
things did not impose upon Stephen Strong. 

As they were leaving the dining-room, on the 
plea of finding something, Tamara went to her 
room, and Gritzko took his leave. 

‘T will fetch you for the French plays to-night, 
Tantine,” he said, ‘‘and probably will come back 
to tea — ^tell Tamara,’’ and so he left, and the two 
old friends were alone. 

They stirred their coffee and then lit cigarettes — 
there was an awkward silence for a moment, and 
then the Princess said: 

“Stephen, I count upon you to help us all over 
this. I do not, and will not, even guess what has 
happened, but of course something has. Only 
280 


HIS HOUR 


tell me, do you think he loves her ? I cannot bear 
the idea of Tamara’s being unhappy.” 

The old Englishman puffed rings of smoke. 

‘Tf she is prepared never to cross his will, but 
let him be absolute master of her body and soul, 
while he makes continuous love to her, I should 
think she will be the happiest woman in the world. 
She is madly infatuated with him. She has been 
ever since we came from Egypt — saw the begin- 
ning on the boat — ^and I warned you, as you know, 
when I thought he was only fooling.” 

‘Tn Egypt! — ^they had met before then!” the 
Princess exclaimed, surprised; “how like Gritzko 
to pretend he did not know her, — and be introduced 
all over again! They had already quarreled, I 
suppose, and that accounts for the cat and dog 
like tone there has always been between them.” 

“Probably,” said Stephen Strong; but now I 
think we can leave it to chance. You may be 
certain that to marry her is what he wishes most to 
do, — or he would not have asked her.” 

“Not even if — ^he thought he ought to?” 

“No — dear friend. No! I believe I know 
Gritzko even better than you do. If there was a 
281 


HIS HOUR 


sense of obligation, and no desire in the case, he 
would simply shoot her and himself, rather than 
submit to a fate against his inclination. You may 
rest in peace about that. Whatever strain there 
is between them, it is not of that sort. I believe he 
adores her in his odd sort of way, just let them 
alone now and all will be well.” 

And greatly comforted the Princess was able to 
go out calling. 

The news was received with every sort of emotion, 

— ^surprise, chagrin, joy, excitement, speculation, 
and there were even those among them who averred 
they had predicted this marriage all along. 

“Fortunately we like her,” Countess Olga said. 
“She is a good sort, and perhaps she will keep 
Gritzko quiet, and he may be faithful to her.” 

But this idea was laughed to scorn, until Valonne 
joined in with his understanding smile. | 

“I will make you a bet,” he said; “in five years’ j 
time they will still be love-birds. She will be j 
the only one among this party who won’t have j 
been divorced and have moved on to another j 
husband.” I 

“You horribly spiteful cat!” Princess Sonia |; 

282 


HIS HOUR 


laughed. “But I am sure we all hope they will be 
happy.” 

Meanwhile Jack Courtray had come in at once 
to see Tamara. 

“Well, upon my word! fancy you marrying a 
foreigner, old girl!” he said; “but you have got 
just about the best chap I have ever met, and I 
believe you’ll be jolly happy.” 

And Tamara bent down so that he should not 
see the tears which gathered in her eyes, while she 
answered softly, “Thank you very much. Jack; 
but no one is ever sure of being happy.” 

And even though Lord Courtray’s perceptions 
were rather thick he wondered at her speech — ^it 
upset him. 

“Look here, Tamara,” he said, “don’t you do 
it then if it is a chancy sort of thing. Don’t go 
and tie yourself up if you aren’t sure you love him.” 

Love him! — ^good God! 

Pent-up feeling overcame Tamara. She an- 
swered in a voice her old playmate had never 
dreamed she possessed — ^so concentrated and full 
of passion. In their English lives they were so 
accustomed to controlling every feeling into a level 
19 283 


HIS HOUR 


commonplace that if they had had time to think, 
both would have considered this outburst 
melodramatic. 

‘‘Jack,” Tamara said, ‘‘you don’t know what 
love is. I tell you I know now — 1 love Gritzko so 
that I would rather be unhappy with him than 
happy with any one else on earth. And if they ask 
you at home, say I would not care if he were a 
Greek, or a Turk, or an African nigger, I would 
follow him to perdition. — There!” — and she 
suddenly burst into tears and buried her face in 
her hands. 

Yes, it was true. In spite of shame and disgrace, 
and fear, she loved him — ^passionately loved him. 

Of course Jack, who was the kindest-hearted 
creature, at once put his arm around her and took 
out his handkerchief and wiped her eyes, while he 
said soothingly: 

“I say, my child — ^there! there! — ^this will never 
do,” and he continued to pet and try to comfort 
her, but all she could reply was to ask him to go, 
and to promise her not to say anything about her 
outburst of tears to any one. 

And, horribly distressed. Jack did what she 
284 


HIS HOUR 


wished, running against Gritzko in the passage as 
he went out; but they had met before that day, so 
he did not stop, but, nodding in his friendly way, 
passed down the stairs. 

Tamara sat where he had left her, the tears still 
trickling over her cheeks, while she stared into the 
fije. The vision she saw there of her future did 
not console her. 

To be married to a man whom she knew she 
would daily grow to love more — every moment of 
her time conscious that the tie was one of sufferance, 
her pride and self respect in the dust — ^it was a 
miserable picture. 

Gritzko came in so quietly through the ante- 
room that, lost in her troubled thoughts, she did 
not hear him until he was quite close. She gave a 
little startled exclamation and then looked at him 
defiantly — she was angry that he saw her tears. 

His face went white and his voice grew hoarse 
with overmastering emotion. 

“What has happened between you and your 
friend, Madame? Tell me the truth. No man 
should see you cry! Tell me everything, or I will 
kill him.’’ 


285 


HIS HOUR 


And he stood there his eyes blazing. 

Then Tamara rose and drew herself to her full 
height, while a flash of her vanished pride returned 
to her mien, and with great haughtiness she 
answered in a cold voice: 

‘T beg you to understand one thing, Prince, I 
will not be insulted by suspicions and threats 
against my friends. Lord Courtray and I have 
been brought up as brother and sister. We spoke 
of my home, which I may never see again, and I 
told him what he was to say to them there when 
they asked about me. If I have cried I am ashamed 
of my tears, and when you speak and act as you 
have just done, it makes me ashamed of the feeling 
which caused them.” 

He took a step nearer, he admired her courage. 

‘‘What was the feeling which caused them? 

Tell me, I must know, ” he said; but as he 

spoke he chanced to notice she had replaced her 
wedding ring, it shone below his glittering ruby. 

“That I will not bear!” he exclaimed, and with 
almost violence he seized her wrist and forcibly 
drew both rings from her Anger, and then replaced 
his own. 


286 


HIS HOUR 


‘‘There shall be no token of another! No gold 
band there but mine, and until then, no jewel but 
this ruby!” 

Then he dropped her hand and turning, threw 
the wedding ring with passion in the fire ! 

Tamara made a step forward in protest, and then 
she stood petrified while her eyes flashed with 
anger. 

“Indeed, yes, I am ashamed I cried!” she said 
at last between her teeth. 

He made some restless paces, he was very much 
moved. 

“I must know he began. But at that 

moment the servants came in with the tea, and 
Tamara seized the opportunity while they were 
settling the tray to get nearer the door, and then 
fled from the room, leaving Gritzko extremely 
disturbed. 

What could she mean? He knew in his calmer 
moments he had not the least cause to be jealous of 
Jack. What was the inference in her words ? Two 
weeks seemed a long time to wait before he could 
have all clouds dispersed, all things explained — 
as she lay in his arms. And this thought — ^to hold 

287 


HIS HOUR 


her in his arms — drove him wild. He felt inclined 
to rush after her, to ask her to forgive him for his 
anger, to kiss and caress her, to tell her he loved her 
madly and was jealous of even the air she breathed 
until he should hear her say she loved him. 

He went as far as to write a note. 

“Madame,’ he began — He determined to keep 
to the severest formality or he knew he would never 
be able to play his part until the end. — “I regret 
my passion just now. The situation seemed peculiar 
as I came in. I understand there was nothing for 
me to have been angry about, — ^please forgive me. 
Rest now. I will come and fetch you at quarter to 
eight. 

“ Gritzko.” 

And as he went away he had it sent to her room. 

And when Tamara read it the first gleam of 
comfort she had known since the night at the hut 
illumined her thoughts. If he should loVe her — 
after all! — ^But no, this could not be so; his behavior 
was not the behavior of love. But in spite of the 
abiding undercurrent of humiliation and shame, 
the situation was intensely exciting. She feverishly 
looked forward to the evening. Her tears seemed 
288 


HIS HOUR 


to have unlocked her heart — she was no longer 
numb. She was perfectly aware that no matter 
what he had done she wildly loved him. He had 
taken everything from her, dragged her down from 
her pedestal, but that last remnant of self-respect 
she would keep. He should not know of this 
crowning humiliation — that she still loved him. So 
her manner was like ice when he came into the 
room, and the chill of it communicated itself to 
him. They hardly spoke on the way to the Theatre 
Michel, and when they entered the box she pre- 
tended great interest in the stage, while, between 
the acts, all their friends came in to give their 
congratulations. 

Tamara asked to be excused from going on to 
supper and the ball which was taking place. And 
she kept close to her godmother while going out, 
and so contrived that she did not say a word alone 
with Gritzko. It was because he acquiesced fully 
in this line of conduct that she was able to carry it 
through, otherwise he would not have permitted 
it for a moment. 

He realized from this night that the situation 
could only be made possible if he saw her rarely 

289 


HIS HOUR 


and before people — ^alone with her, human nature 
would be too strong. So with the most frigid 
courtesy and ceremony between them the days 
wore on, and toward the beginning of the following 
week Gritzko went off with Jack Courtray on the 
bear-hunt. He could stand no more. 

But after he was gone Tamara loathed the 
moments. She was overwrought and overstrung. 
Harassed by the wailing and expostulations of her 
family for what they termed her ‘‘rash act,’’ 
worried by dressmakers and dozens of letters to 
write, troubled always with the one dominating 
fear, at last she collapsed and for two days lay 
really ill in a darkened room. 

Then Gritzko returned, and there were only five 
days before the wedding. He had sent her flowers 
each morning as a lover should, and he had 
loaded her with presents, — ^all of which she re- 
ceived in the same crushed spirit. With the fixed 
idea in her brain that he was only marrying her 
because as a gentleman he must, none of his gifts 
gave her any pleasure. And he, with immense 
control of passion had played his part, only his 
time of probation was illumined by the knowledge 

290 


HIS HOUR 


of coming joy. Whereas poor Tamara, as the 
time wore on, lost all hope, and grew daily 
paler fnd more fragile-looking. 

Her father had a bad attack of the gout, and 
could not possibly move; but her brother Tom and 
her sister. Lady Newbridge, and Millicent Hard- 
castle were to arrive three days before the wedding. 


CHAPTER XXI 


HE night of the bear-hunter’s return there 
^ ^ was to be a small dinner at the Ardacheff 
house. The Princess had arranged that 
there should be a party of six; so that while the four 
played bridge the fiancfe might talk to one another. 
She was growing almost nervous, and indeed it had 
required all Stephen Strong’s assurance that things 
eventually would come right to prevent her from 
being actually unhappy. 

‘‘Let ’em alone!” the old man said. “Take no 
notice! you won’t regret it.” 

Tamara had only got up from her bed that after- 
noon and was very pale and feeble. She wore a 
white clinging dress and seemed a mere sHp of 
a girl. The great string of beautiful pearls, 
Gritzko’s latest gift, which had arrived that morning, 
was round her neck, and her sweet eyes glanced up 
sadly from the blue shadows which encircled them. 

Gritzko was already there when the Princess 
and Tamara reached the first salon, and his eyes 

292 


HIS HOUR 


swam wijh passionate concern when he saw how 
Tamara had been suffering. He could not restrain 
the feeling in his voice as he exclaimed : 

“You have been ill! — my sweet lady! Oh! 
Tantine, why did you not send for me? How 
could you let her suffer?” 

And a sudden wave of happiness came over 
Tamara when he kissed her hand. She was so 
weak the least thing could have made her cry. 

But her happiness was short-lived, for Gritzko — 
afraid yet of showing what was in his heart — seemed 
now colder than ever; though he was exulting 
within himself at the thought that the moment 
would come soon when all this pretence should 
end. 

Tamara, knowing nothing of these things, felt 
a new sinking depression. In five days she would 
be his wife, and then when he had paid the honor- 
able price — ^how would he treat her? — 

He was looking wildly attractive to-night, his 
voice had a thousand tones in it when he addressed 
the others, he was merry and witty and gay — ^and 
almost made love to the Princess — only to his 
fiancee did he seem reserved. 


293 


HIS HOUR 


The food appeared impossible to swallow. She 
almost felt at last as though she were going to faint. 
The hopeless anguish of the situation weighed upon 
her more than ever; for alas! she felt she loved him 
now beyond any pride, every barrier was broken 
down. She had no more anger or resentment for 
the night at the hut. All his many sins were 
forgiven. 

Dinner was an impossible penance, and with 
a feverish excitement she waited for the time when 
they should be alone. 

It seemed an eternity before coffee was finished 
and the four retired to their bridge. Then the two 
passed out of the room and on into the blue salon. 

It was extremely difficult for both of them. The 
Prince could scarcely control his mad longing to 
caress her. Only that strange turn in his character 
held him. Also the knowledge that once he were 
to grant himself an inch he could never restrain 
the whole of his wild passion, and there were yet 
five days before she should be really his . 

Tamara looked a white, frozen shape as she 
almost fell into the sofa below the Falconet group. 
Cupid with his laughing eyes peeped down and 
294 


HIS HOUR 


mocked her. Gritzko did not sit beside her. He 
took a chair and leant on a table near. 

"‘We had good sport,” he said dryly. “Your 
friend can hit things. We got two bears.” 

“Jack must have been pleased,” Tamara 
answered dully. 

“And your family — ^they arrive on Monday, isn’t 
it?” he asked. “Your brother and sister and the 
estimable Mrs. Hardcastle?” and he laughed as 
he always did at the mention of Millicent. “They 
will wonder, won’t they, why you are marrying 
this savage! but they will not know.” 

“ No !” said Tamara. “ They must never know.” 
Gritzko ’s face became whimsical, a disconcerting, 
mischievous provoking smile stole into his eyes. 

“Do you know yourself?” he asked. 

She looked up at him startled. It was her 
habit now never to meet his eyes. Indeed, the 
sense of humiliation under which she lived had 
changed all her fearless carriage of head. 

“Why do you ask such questions? I might as 
well ask you why are you marrying me. We both 
know that we cannot help it,” and there was a 
break in her voice which touched him profoundly. 

295 


HIS HOUR 


“Answer for yourself please, I may have several 
other reasons,’’ he said coldly, and got up and 
walked across the room picking up a bibelot here 
and there, and replacing it restlessly. 

Tamara longed to ask him what these reasons 
were. She was stirred with a faint hope, but she 
had not the courage, the intensity of her feeling 
made her dumb. 

“They — Tantine — or Sonia — ^have explained to 
you all the service, I suppose,” he said at last. “ It 
is different to yours in your country. It means 
much more — 

“And is more easily broken.” 

“That is so, but we shall not break ours, except 
by death,” and he raised his head proudly. “From 
Wednesday onward the rest of your life belongs to 
me.” 

Tamara shivered. If she could only overcome 
this numbness which had returned — if she could 
only let her' frozen heart speak; this was surely 
the moment, but she could not, she remained 
silent and white and lifeless. 

He came over to the sofa. 

“Tamara,” he said, and his voice vibrated with 

296 


HIS HOUR 


suppressed passion. ‘‘Will you tell me the truth? 
Do you hate me, — or what do you feel for me 

She thought he meant only to torture her further; 
she would not answer the question. 

“Is it not enough that you have conquered me 
by force ? Why should you care to know what my 
feelings are? As you say, after Wednesday I shall 
belong to you — ^You can strangle me at Milaslav 
if you wish. My body will be yours, but my soul 
you shall never soil or touch, you have no part or 
lot in that matter. Prince.” 

His eyes filled with pain. 

“I will even have your soul,” he said. Then, as 
though restraining further emotion, he went on 
coldly. “I have arranged that after the wedding 
we go to my house, and do not start for the South 
until Saturday. There are some things I wish to 
show you there. Will that be as you wish?” 

“I have no wishes, it is as you please,” Tamara 
answered monotonously. 

He gave an impatient shrug, and walked up and 
down the room, his will kept its mastery, but it 
was a tremendous strain. Her words had stung 
him, her intense quiet and absence of emotion had 

297 


HIS HOUR 


produced a faint doubt. What if after all he 
should never be able to make her love him. For 
the first time in his life a hand of ice clutched his 
heart. He knew in those moments of agony that 
she meant the whole world to him. 

He glanced at her slender graceful figure so 
listlessly leaning against the blue cushions, at her 
pale ethereal face, and then he turned abruptly 
away toward the door to the other salon. 

‘‘Come,” he said, “it is of no avail to talk further, 
we will say good-night.” Tamara rose. The way 
to her room led from the opposite side. 

“Good-night then,” she said, “make my adieu 
to Sonia and the rest. I shall go to bed,” and she 
walked that way. The whole fioor was between 
them, as she looked back. He stood rigid by the 
other door. 

Then with great strides he was beside her, and 
had taken her in his arms. 

“Ah! God!” he said, as he fiercely kissed her, 
and then almost fiung her from him, and strode 
from the room. 

And Tamara went on to her own, trembling 
with excitement. 


298 


HIS HOUR 


This was passion truly, but what if some love 
lurked underneath? — ^and when she reached her 
great white bed she fell upon her knees, and bury- 
ing her face in her hands she prayed to God. 

Now of what use to write of the days that fol- 
lowed — ^the stiflF restrained days — or of the arrival 
of Tom Underdown and his sister, and Millicent 
Hardcastle — or of the splendid Russian ceremonies 
in the church or the quieter ones at the Embassy. 
All that it concerns us to know is that Gritzko and 
Tamara were at last alone on this their wedding 
night. Alone with all their future before them. 
Both their faces had been grave and solemn through 
all the vows and prayers, but afterward his had 
shone with a wild triumph. And as they had 
driven to his house on the Fontonka he had held 
Tamara’s hand but had not spoken. 

It was a strange eventful moment when he led 
her up the great stairs between the rows of bowing 
servants — up into the salons all decorated with 
flowers. Then, still never speaking, he opened 
the ball-room doors, and when they had walked 
20 299 


HIS HOUR 


its great length and came to the rooms beyond, 
he merely said: 

‘‘These you must have done by that man in 
Paris — or how you please,” as though the matter 
were aloof, and did not interest him. And then 
instead of turning into his own sitting-room, he 
opened a door on the right, which Tamara did not 
know, and they entered what had been his mother’s 
bedroom. It was warmed and lit, but it wore 
that strange air of gloom and melancholy which 
untenanted rooms, consecrated to the memory of 
the dead, always have, in spite of blue satin and 
bright gilding. 

“Tamara,” he said, and he took her hand, “these 
were my mother’s rooms. I loved her very much, 
and I always thought I would never let any woman 
— even my wife — enter them. I have left them 
just as she used them last. But now I know that 
is not what she would have wished.” 

His deep voice trembled a little with a note of 
feeling in it which was new, and which touched 
Tamara’s innermost being.- 

“I want you to see them now with me, and then 
while we are in the South all these things shall be 
300 


HIS HOUR 


taken away, and they shall be left bare and white 
for you to arrange them when we come back, just 
as you would like. I want my mother’s blessing 
to rest on us — ^which it will do 

Then he paused, and there was a wonderful 
silence, and when he went on, his tones were full 
of a great tenderness. 

“Little one, in these rooms, some day I will 
make you happy.” 

Tamara trembled so she could hardly stand, the 
reaction from her misery was so immense. She 
swayed a little and put out her hand to steady 
herself by the back of a chair. He thought she 
was going to fall, seeing her so white, and he put 
his arm round her as he led her through the room 
and into the sitting-room, and then beyond again 
to a little sanctuary. Here a lamp swung before 
the Ikon, and the colors were subdued and rich, 
while the virgin’s soft eyes looked down upon them. 
There were fresh lilies, too, in a vase below, and 
their scent perfumed the air. He knelt for a second 
and whispered a prayer, then he rose, and they 
looked into each other’s eyes — and their souls met 
— ^and all shadows rolled away. 

301 


HIS HOUR 


“Tamara!” he said, and he held out his arms — • 
and with a little inarticulate cry almost of pain 
Tamara fell into them — ^and he folded her to his 
heart — ^while he bent and kissed her hair. 

Then he held her from him and looked deep into 
her eyes. 

“Sweetheart — ^am I forgiven?” he asked, and 
when she could speak she answered: 

“Yes — ^you are forgiven.” 

Then he questioned again. 

“Tamara, do you love me?” 

But he saw the answer in her sweet face, and 
did not wait for her to speak, but kissed her 
mouth. 

Then he lifted her in his arms like a baby and 
carried her back through the ghostly rooms to his 
warm human sitting-room, and there he laid her 
tenderly down upon the couch and knelt beside 
her. 

“Oh, my heart,” he said. “What this time has 
been — ^since you promised to marry me! — ^but I 
would not change it — wanted you to love me 
beyond everything — ^beyond anger with me, beyond 
— ^fear — beyond your pride. Now tell me you do. 
302 


HIS HOUR 


My sweet one. Moia Doushka. I must know. 
I must know. You mean my life — tell me?” 

And passion overcame Tamara, and she answered 
him in a low voice of vibrating emotion. 

“Gritzko! do you think I care for what you have 
done or will do! You know very well I have always 
loved you!” And she put up her mouth for him 
to kiss her. Then he went quite mad for a few 
moments with joy — ^he caressed her as even on the 
dawn-drive she had never dreamed, and pres- 
ently he said with deep earnestness. 

‘‘Darling, we must live for one another — ^in 
the world of course for duty; but our real life shall 
be alone at Milaslav for only you and me. You 
must teach me to be calm and to banish impossible 
thoughts. You must make yourself my center — 
Tamara, you must forget all your former life, and 
give yourself to me, sweetheart. My country 
must be your country, my body your body, and my 
soul your soul. I love you better than heaven or 
earth — ^and you are mine now till death do us part.” 

Then the glory of paradise seemed to descend 
upon Tamara, as he bent and kissed her lips. 

Oh! what did anything else matter in the world 

303 


HIS HOUR 


since after all he loved her! This beautiful fierce 
lover! 

Visions of enchantment presented themselves — 
a complete intoxication of joy. 

He held her in his arms, and all the strange 
passion and mystic depths which had fascinated 
her always, now dwelt in his eyes, only intensified 
by delirious love. 

‘‘Do you remember. Sweetheart, how you defied 
and resisted me? Darling! Heart of mine! but 
I have conquered you and taken you, in spite of all ! 
You cannot struggle any more, you are my own. 
Only you must tell me that you give me, too, your 
soul. Ah! you said once I should have no part 
or lot in that matter. Tamara, tell me that I 
have it?” 

And Tamara thrilled with ecstasy as she whis- 
pered, “Yes, you have it.” 

She cared not at all about pride — ^she did not 
wish to struggle, she adored being conquered. Her 
entire being was merged in his. 

He held her from him for a second and the old 
whimsical smile full of tender mischief stole into 
his eyes. 


304 


HIS HOUR 


‘‘That night at the hut — ^when you dropped the 
pistol when — ^well, don’t you want to know what 
really did happen?” he said. 

She buried her face in his scarlet coat. 

“ Oh, no, no, no ! ” she cried. “ It is all forgotten 
and forgiven.” 

Then with wild passion he clasped her to his 
breast. 

“Oh! Love!” he said. ‘‘My sweet Princess; 
the gods are very kind to us, for all happiness is 
yet to come — ! I did but kiss your little feet.” 


( 8 ) 


THE END 


/ 


\ 



; 


BOOKS BY DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS 


The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig 

The story of a strong, virile personality, set among the frothy super* 
ficiaMties of society life in Washington. Joshua Craig is a young lawyer who 
is striving to make a name for himself in national politics. He is big, rough, 
and o-ude, repelling and yet compelling. He fights quite as hard to gain the 
love of a lady as he does to attain his coveted political goal. 

Illustrated by A, B, Wenzell, ismo^ clothe $i,yo 


Old Wives for New 

A daring title. The story is just as daring, but nevertheless it rings true. 
It is a frank and faithful picture of married life as it exists to-day among cer- 
tain classes in this country. It is the story of a young couple who loved as 
others do, but whose love turns to indifference, and Mr. Phillips shows us why 
their married life was a failure. 

i2mo^ clothy 


The Second Generation 

It is a double-decked romance, telling the love stories of a young man 
and his sister, both reared in great extravagance and suddenly left without 
means by their father, who, being a self-made man has come to feel that his 
wealth has been a curse to his children, and would prove their ruination if left 
to them. The young man and the young woman find life very hard sledding 
for a time, but gain strength and courage and make a good fight for love, 
happiness, and life. 

Illustrated^ J2m0y ornamental cover in colors inlaid^ Si^jo 


Light-Fingered Gentry 

In this story Mr. Phillips has chosen the inside workings of the great 
insurance companies as his field of battle ; the salons of the great Fifth Avenue 
mansions as the antechambers of his field of intrigue; and the two things 
which every natural big man desires, love and success, as the goal of his lead- 
ing character. 

Illustratedy ornamental clothy Si-So 


The Worth of a Woman — A Play 

“It is a remarkable piece of work, showing keen, logical thought, a 
daring rush to conclusions, a bold and sportsmanlike grip of an ugly problem. 
1 admire the pluck of this author .” — Alan Dale in the N, Y. American, 

J2m0y clothy $i.2y net 


T>. APPLETON AND COMPANY^ NEW YORK 


444 


BOOKS BY DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS 


The Husband’s Story 

i2mo, Cloth, JI1.50. 

A clean, straightforward novel, interesting from page to page, and 
as a whole most interesting because Mr. Phillips has with great skill 
written it so that the millionaire husband not only shows the character 
of his wife but lays his own character before the reader as if uncon- 
sciously. A faithfully true picture of the social climber in American 
womanhood, the Passaic undertaker’s daughter who climbs to Euro- 
pean chateau life. The most cold-blooded and accurate presentation 
of a certain type of money-making, hard-working commercial man. 
And yet the man tells his own story. 

The Hungry Heart 

i2mo, Cloth, II1.50. 

“ Mr. Phillips’s book is at once an interesting piece of fiction and a 
trenchant dissection of some of our most dearly loved self-deceptions. 
And it is a work that can be read with profit — one is almost inclined 
to say that should be read — by any who are old enough to be able, and 
honest enough to dare, to seek the truest meanings of life by teaching 
themselves to look life unblinkingly in the face.” — y. B. Kerfoot in 
Everybody* s Magazine. 

“The most profound study of the emotions of men and women 
attempted in latter-day fiction is found in ‘The Hungry Heart.* It 
should touch the sensibilities, the judgment and the emotions of every- 
one who reads it .” — Philadelphia Record. 

White Magic 

Illustrated by A. B. Wenzell, Color Inlay by Harrison 
Fisher on Cover, izmo, Cloth, $1.50. 

A wayward girl, heiress to a great fortune, falls deeply in love with 
an artist of small means, who does not seem to reciprocate her feeling. 
Her father intervenes. The girl, who, like her mother, has always been 
accustomed to bow to her father’s aggressive will, now defies him utterly 
and leaves her home. The artist remains unaware of the havoc he has 
created. He is friendly in a manner toward the girl and tr'es to act as 
a sort of elder brother and counselor in her perplexities. The working 
up and working out of this tangled situation is accomplished in a masterly 
way, and with the intense and dramatic situations which readers have 
learned to look for from Mr. Phillips. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK 


467 


NOVELS BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS 

The most popular writer in the country /' — New York World. 

Ailsa Paige. Bound in green cloth with gold title. Eight 
j full-page illustrations by F. Vaux Wilson and wrapper 
I in colors and gold. $1.50. 

This book contains not only the striking pictures of fashionable life fo. 
Which Mr. Chambers is famous, introducing a hero as strong and as inter- 
esting as Malcourt in “The Firing Line” and a heroine as fascinating as 
;Sylvia Landis*in “The Fighting Chance,” but with these personalities is fused 
.a theme of noblest patriotism, animating the vivid, graphic pictures of the 
preparations for and the grim fighting in our Civil War. Throughout the 
whole story, the influence of a strong, passionate, uplifting love is shown para- 
I mount in the lives of a wondrous woman and a vigorous man. 

‘|The Danger Mark. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 

This new society novel presents another side of the wonderful art of 
Mr. Chambers. 7 he background is woven of the same delightful, casual, 
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incidents to which the former novels owe much of their popularity. The 
theme is in many respects the most important Mr. Chambers has yet handled. 

The Firing Line. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

This is unquestionably the best novel Mr. Chambers has ever written. 
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and the story presents the accomplishment of a great novel which was promised 
by the author’s preliminary trials in “The Fighting Chance” and “The 
Younger Set.” 

The Younger Set. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 

“ The Younger Set ” is a novel of the swirl of wealthy New York society. 
The hero, forced out of the army by domestic troubles, returns to New York 
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But new complications intervene and are described with what the New York 
Sun calls Mr. Chambers’ “amazing knack of narrative.” 

The Fighting Chance. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 

One of the most brilliant pictures of wealthy American society ever painted; 
one of the most interesting and appealing stories ever written ; one of the 
most widely read of all American novels. The novel that brought Mr. Cham- 
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“After ‘ The House of Mirth’ a New York society novel has to be very 
good not to suffer fearfully by comparison. ‘ The Fighting Chance ’ is very 
good and it does not suffer .” — Cleveland Plain Dealer. 

“ There is no more adorable person in recent fiction than Sylvia Landis.” 

— New York Evening Sun. 


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** The most popular m)riter in the country /*' — New York World. 


The Green Mouse. Illustrated in Colors by Edmund 
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A novel founded on a most whimsically entertaining notion of a wireless 
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Special Messenger. Illustrated, Colored Inlay on Cover. 
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The romantic love story of a woman spy in the Civil War. 

lole. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.25. 

“Think of eight pretty girls in pink silk pajamas and sunbonnets, 
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the background, and a poetical father in the foreground. Think again of 
those rose-petalled creations turned loose upon New York society and then 
enjoy the fun of it all in ‘ lole.’ ” — Boston Herald. 

Some Ladies in Haste. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 

ATr. Chambers has written most delightfully, and in his charming satire 
depicts the plight of five society girls and five clubmen. It is by far his best 
work in the lighter vein. 

The Tracer of Lost Persons. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 

The captivating account of the strangely absorbing adventures of a 
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emotions. ” — Chicago Inte7‘-Ocean. 

The Tree of Heaven. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 

If you looked squarely into a mirror and saw your PROFILE instead 
of your full face; if you suddenly found yourself 25 miles away from yourself 
you would be in one of the tantalizing situations that give fascination to this 
charming book. 

“ Robert W. Chambers has brought his great charm of story telling to 
bear in ‘ The Tree of Heaven,’ wherein he treats of the occult and mysticism 
of the East. His vivid descriptions make his scenes strangely real, and his 
argument is convincing, almost against the will.” — Milwaukee Sentinel. 

The Reckoning. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 

A story of northern New York during the last fierce fights between 
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important contribution to the study of American social con- 
iitions /' — Boston Herald. 


The Southern South 

By Albert Bushnell Hart, LL.D., Ph.D., Litt.D., 
Professor of History at Harvard University ; President 
American Historical Association. With colored map. 
i2mo. Cloth, ^1.50 net. 

*^Mr. Hart chooses as his field the far South, purer in 
Southern strain than the modified borderland between North 
md South. Out of its foundation of climate, soil and topog- 
aphy are rapidly drawn occupation, habit, disposition, out- 
00k and temperament of the Southern people. This is the 
present common highway of investigation, yet not all set out 
;o briskly, or make so straight a course, or attract so close 
ittention in the passage. The people are themselves classified 
iharply as whites and negroes. An examination and discussion 
Df the Southern temperament, psychologically and historically 
based, makes a chapter of deep interest, that of the character 
of the negro another. The remainder of the study is given up 
to the supreme problem of the relation of the races in the 
economic and moral development of the South. The negro 
It home and in industry ; race association and separation ; 
white and negro education ; crime, and peonage, are among 
the pertinent and pressing subjects brought out here in a fair- 
tninded, unevasive spirit, buttressed by official evidence and 
personal research .^* — Washingtofi Star, 

One of the most important books on this issue that has 
been published in recent years. ... It is a broad-minded, 
thoughtful inquiry that covers the whole field pretty thoroughly, 
Rvhich considers the Southern view very fully, and incidentally 
brings out the Northern viewpoint so far as it finds present 
Expression. His inquiry includes some features of the problem 
pot often considered .” — Brooklyn Eagle. 


P. APPLETON & COMPANY, NEW YORK 
473 


By DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS 


The Grain of Dust' 

By David Graham Phillips, author of “ The 
Husband’s Story,” “The Hungry Heart,” “Old 
Wives for New,” etc. Illustrated by A. B. 
Wenzell. i2mo. Cloth, $1.30 net. 

The story of a great lawyer whose career comes near 
being wrecked through his infatuation for a shy little 
stenographer. 

‘^Told with unlimited brilliance and animation.” 

— Aidany Journal. 

‘‘It compels a style of reading distinctly feverish.” 

— New York Times. 

“ Probably the most brilliant of the novelist’s numerous 
studies of character amid varying conditions of life.” 

— Tittsburg Chronicle- Telegraph. 

“This is one of the most significant novels of the year 
so far in its constructive bearing upon the difficulties of 
modern existence. It deserves attention because of its 
singular merits.” — The Indepeiident. 

“It is conceived in the same vein of sincerity and treats 
modern life with that firm and certain grasp which has com- 
pelled serious and nation-wide recognition for practically all 
of Phillips’s work.” — Philadelphia Press. 

“ One reads it with feverish interest. It seems to demon- 
strate that love is an illusion, but a very fatal and disturbing 
illusion while it lasts. The story is remarkable for its concise 
and suggestive realism.” — Des Moines Register and Leuucr. 


D. APPLETON & COMPANY, NEW YORK 
480 



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